• You must be doing something right because the politicians in Raleigh would like you to testify one more time. The budget writers are having difficulty balancing the revenues coming in with the expenditures going out. Many of the fiscally conscious representatives are willing to shut down many of the 74 State Parks, Areas, Lakes, Rivers and Trails. The state parks employ about 400 people and host more than 15 million visitors each year, according to theNorth Carolina State Parks website (https://www.ncparks.gov/more-about-us/about-state-parks-system). Shutting them down is politically risky and an alternative is needed.
• The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana has published a case study comparing two public parks called,A Tale of Two Parks by Warren Meyer. September 2013.Use the questions provided on the assignment to help guide your testimony to the committee.
• In your testimony to the politicians in Raleigh, you will need to find a way of taking the PERC model and making it applicable to North Carolina. How can the PERC model benefit North Carolina and help maintain a balanced budget? The legislators will want to know if this is something that can be applied across the board to the entiredepartment of parks and recreation or to just a subset. If it is a subset, what are the limitations? They will also want to know if there will be immediate benefits or whether these benefits will be far into the future. To help further the debate, a recentarticlein theCarolina Journal Online(https://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-state-parks-funding.html) addresses the possibility of charging an admission fee to enter state parks.