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by Curt Ashenfelter, Executive Director
On June 4th, I had the opportunity to make the following remarks at a press conference in the Capitol Media Center in Harrisburg:
"The Keystone Trails Association, representing the state's 3.5 million hikers, supports Senate Bill 1466, which restores funding for the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund - the backbone of conservation funding in Pennsylvania.
Permanent elimination of this funding would have dire consequences for the hiking community.
Until this year, a portion of the Commonwealth's realty transfer tax provided dedicated funding to numerous trail projects throughout the commonwealth.
Diversion of these monies to the General Fund budget would cripple future trail efforts in Pennsylvania. SB 1466 permanently restores the annual dedicated funding mechanism for DCNR's share of Keystone funding from the realty transfer tax. Losing the dedicated funding for Keystone that has been in place since 1993 would have had a crippling effect on many programs. The fund has supported over 800 trail projects, helped conserve over 145,000 acres of green space, assisted over 2,500 community park projects, and made hundreds of significant investments in state parks and state forest recreational projects, and much more. However, SB 1466 only restores half of the funding for Keystone, approximately $18 million.
The Keystone Trails Association also supports additional efforts beyond SB 1466 that restore the other $18 million for the Keystone Fund as the budget process moves along.
Many hikers have already contacted and met with their legislators to urge full restoration of Keystone funding. In the days ahead we will continue to encourage all of our members to contact and meet their legislators in their district offices in support of full Keystone restoration.
So many miles of hiking trails have benefited from Keystone funding to date, that we recognize that to abandon that effort in the future will have a significant impact on the quality of hiking trails in Pennsylvania."
Since that press conference the Pennsylvania House of Representative has restored all Keystone funding. The House unanimously approved an amendment to the General Fund budget bill (Senate Bill 1466) that restores all funding for the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund.
House Majority Appropriations Chair Bill Adolph, R-Delaware, played the lead role in the effort to restore these critical funds and sponsored the amendment. Now that the House has restored Keystone funding, the Senate, and then again the House, will need to vote on the budget bill. Gov. Corbett is urging further cuts in the budget, and the Keystone Fund is not safe. Continue to urge your state senator and representative to fully fund Keystone. |