By raising your automobile license fees by $9 per vehicle per year… from the Payson Round-Up:

… state Rep. Bill Konopnicki and others have introduced a bill that would add $9 to the vehicle license fees to fund state parks.  The surcharge on license fees would also give state drivers free entrance to the state park system, prevent the Legislature from diverting entrance fees and provide enough money to keep the state parks system operating.

Konopnicki’s vehicle license fee charge could provide a long-term solution to the problems of the whole system, if it makes it through the Legislature.  “The parks system is currently operating on about $21 million,” said Konopnicki, “but they really need about $30 million. This should generate better than that.”  Konopnicki said it would be foolish to shut down the state parks system for lack of operating funds, considering the economic benefits the system yields —

So were local public and private solutions entertained by the State Parks Administration?  What do you think?  Payson offered to take over operation of the local state park and were shut down when the counter offer from Parks included an up front charge of over $1,000,000.

Imagine the economic boost locally if a state park was partially privatized and partially operated locally?  Guess they’ll never find out.

Bottom Line?  The state agency wasn’t interested in finding solutions and used the “scare and squeeze” tradition preached by Representative Konopnicki as a ploy to increase fee revenues to continue spending.

Scare and Squeeze … just what the Phoenix Police Union is doing to get the 2% tax on your food, and Mr. Konopnicki is the King of Welfare for failing local governments and state agencies.