The Chamber Alliance of the Mohawk Valley recently sent a letter to Gov. David Paterson opposing his budget proposal to take $1 million per year from the snowmobile fund.
According to the March 5 letter from alliance President Joan Drummond, the nine chambers of commerce in the alliance believe the proposal will compromise the ability for snowmobile trails to be properly maintained.
This would create various impacts, the letter states, including:
* Increasing the risk for accidents.
* Attracting fewer snowmobilers.
* Decreasing the number of people who use local businesses.
* Shrinking the amount of sales and excise taxes collected.
“We urge you to abandon this proposal and to look for other ways to reduce state spending and balance the budget,” the letter states. “As businesspeople must do when faced with a shortfall, your first responsibility must be to cut costs, rather than trying to support a financially unsupportable spending plan by borrowing against our future.”
Paterson’s 2010-11 budget proposes using $1 million from the snowmobile account to reimburse the state for snowmobile-related expenditures including public safety – such as for signage and state Department of Environmental Conservation and parks officers, said Jessica Bassett, a spokeswoman for the state Division of the Budget.
The state’s five-year plan assumes this savings will occur annually, Bassett said.
“There are reductions and eliminations in funding in every area of the executive budget as part of the difficult reality of confronting a more than $9 billion deficit,” she said. “That said, we are always willing to hear from a wide variety of stakeholders and consider their views as the budget process is ongoing.”
Rome Area Chamber of Commerce President William Guglielmo said the snowmobile fund shouldn’t be used for other state expenses.
“We recognize that snowmobiling is a very important business in our area – in Rome and the Mohawk Valley,” he said.
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