10/17/2006

Proposal 1 ensures fees will be used as intended

When Michigan taxpayers in 1972 approved a ballot proposal establishing the Michigan Lottery they probably thought they had ensured millions in funding for the state school aid fund for decades to come.

It was a sucker bet.

Not long after that the state Legislature passed enabling legislation that allowed lawmakers to withhold from the school aid fund one dollar of general fund money for every dollar put in by the lottery.

The result was an unprecedented windfall in state general fund dollars — also known as the Legislature's piggy bank — and not one more dime for education.

Schools aren't alone. Over the years lawmakers have dipped into a number of user fee funds — user fees include hunting, fishing, camping, boating, biking and snowmobile licenses and various fees — to pay for special projects or programs unrelated to the activities that created the funds in the first place.

It's a raid made legal because the folks doing the raiding are lawmakers.

Now, those who use Michigan's hiking and snowmobile trails, lakes and campsites can help protect the funds they pay into by voting "yes" on Proposal 1, the so-called Conservation and Recreation Legacy Act.

Under the Act a host of fees would be given constitutional protection, making them essentially immune from meddling by state lawmakers.

They would include the Game and Fish Protection Trust Fund, Recreation Improvement Fund, Recreational Snowmobile Improvement Fund, Non-game Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund, Forest Recreation Fund, Michigan State Waterways Fund and others.

Voters a few years ago gave similar constitutional protection for the Natural Resources Trust Fund — which has provided millions to purchase key parcels of land in northwest Lower Michigan — the Michigan State Parks Endowment Fund and the Recreation Land Acquisition Trust Fund.

Given the state's budget pains, it's a good thing those funds are raid-proof or there may not have been much left.

This is good law. Vote "yes" on Proposal 1.