H.B. 375 Outdoor Recreation Modifications: transcript

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee. Uh, I have with me Director Curry from the Division of Outdoor Recreation with, with me. He's gonna help me present on this bill. Uh, actually been working on with him and, and with, uh, rush Representative Shallenberger actually did a lot of the heavy lifting on this as well. So, so we, we had, uh, we both had bills and we decided that it could, it could merge into one bill instead. So, um, I appreciate their, their work on this, but, uh, this is a, a fairly, uh, simple bill. What, what it does is we, we had two different, uh, uh, outdoor adventure accounts with fairly similar names, and it got confusing for people. So we, we we're renaming one of them. Um, and then we're also expanding the, the use of, of the funds in one of the accounts to include the outdoor adventure or, or to that we're expanding the use of the outdoor adventure infrastructure. Restrict restricted account to u um, include the Every Kid Outdoors initiative, uh, which has been, uh, a good thing for, for kids outdoors. And, uh, then we're, we've also authorizing the division to use a little bit of, of one of the funds, funds for administrative purposes, which, which is needed. So, uh, that'll, I'll turn it over to Director Curry to maybe fill in where, where I left out.

Thanks. That, that is, uh, pretty much the gist of it. Again, it's, uh, kind of a correction for two accounts that are extremely confusing. The outdoor recreation infrastructure restricted account, and the outdoor recreation and adventure infrastructure, um, restricted account. So we'd rather just call them, one of them, the adventure account and one of them, the infrastructure account. They're both still, um, almost exclusively focused on infrastructure for outdoor recreation. This just clarifies it and avoids confusion. We've had, um, had a couple times when, when it's caused some real problems for us, but it does also, as was mentioned, it expands the ability for, for staff to charge time to the Adventure Fund for things like Every Kid Outdoors program, um, which just delivered outdoor experiences to 2,800 plus individuals. Um, and it also enables us to take on some, um, some project management ability. We are doing a lot of project management, um, and we're going to be doing more of that. Um, after the governor and the Forest Service signed the co-management agreement, shared stewardship agreement, um, it put upon the division, um, a responsibility to, to formulate a work plan to co-manage several recreational elements within the Forest Service. So we'll be doing more of that. Um, currently, um, our, our general fund appropriation, which is not really that big, but continues to, to have a little bit of a cut every year, and we're being directed by the legislative fiscal analyst office to, to, um, replace that general fund money with restricted account money. This will enable us to do that. Um, so project management, every kid outdoors, and then, uh, staff time to just administer the regional recreation councils and their meetings and the work that they do to prioritize recreation projects throughout the state. Thank you. By the way, my name is Jason Curry. I'm the director of the Vision of Auto Recreation. Yeah. So, yeah, that, that concludes our presentation.

Thank you. Thank you, director for being here. Thank you representative for running this huge fan of these programs. Um, I guess I I have one question, Mr. Uh, chair, and that's, it's at your office has grown a lot over the last five years from like five employees to 50, and it's changed for a while. You were doing, um, law enforcement a little bit in your office, and now, now every there's a lot of dynamic movements in there, and as you address the funding, how do you, um, make sure you don't have admin creep and just with the expenses and the expansions and just a lot of stuff in there, the, the money's going to actual outdoor activities?

Yeah, thank you for that question because I, it's something that we're very mindful of. We talk about it all the time. How do we, how do we avoid this growth becoming exactly what we talked about, admin creep. We've got a really, really conscientious, uh, financial, um, uh, director in our division who is always looking at that and advising us. Um, so, so that's to, to answer the question. Um, we're watchful and, and cautious about that. We, we don't want to have, um, more administrators than, than people on the ground doing work. So, um, I'll say that, that, um, yeah, we've had a lot of growth. Um, we're not interested in, in growing more. Um, we we're trying to do the work that we've been asked to do in statute using existing staff. Um, so, but it takes, it takes money to spend money and we continue to get more appropriations. We've gotten two additional new grants, um, over the last couple of legislative sessions. And so in order to, to administer those grants, um, it, it takes staff time to be able to do that. So some of that is, is absorbing within our, uh, existing capacity. So it is hiring new staff. Um, we're trying to operate on, on seasonal and part-time employees as much as we can as well. Um, that's been kind of a key feature of the Young Kid Outdoors program. But, but as that success has, has sort of borne itself out over the last year, um, we're, we're looking to, to add a part or a full-time employee to that. So, um, yeah, sensitive to that, and overall just watchful and, and trying to avoid it. And now you'll, you'll notice on, uh, line number 89 82, it says not to exceed 2% on that administrative staff. So it is, it is limited in, in the code.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Great. And, uh, outdoor recreation has been a great driver, uh, in terms of, uh, economics, uh, economic development and quality of life. One of the reasons people like living in Utah, what is it about this, uh, every Kid Outdoors initiative or, uh, what evidence did you see there that you made you want to take it from a pilot program to a, uh, a long-term initiative?

Mainly just the demand and the popularity, and, and we, we had staff deliver at least once a month, a new activity for, for youth and families to become involved in. Um, it was a lot, and it's not sustainable for us as a division to deliver that. We're looking at partners and we've developed, uh, more than 70 different partners around the state to be able to share that and, and amplify it. So, uh, but, but the reason is, is we're seeing individuals, especially young people, become involved in outdoor recreation activities for the first time in their lives. And we know that it makes a difference for their mental health, their emotional health, um, obviously their physical health, um, makes communities, um, overall more functional and adds to quality of life. So we're, one of our main goals is to, um, encourage all people to be engaged in outdoor recreation. We have kind of two, two subsets. They're what we call our core outdoor recreationists. Those are the people who, who grew up or, or just have a, an almost a daily interest or several times a week. They're on their bike, they're hiking, they're on the skis. Um, and then there's another group of, of individuals that is our target audience. We want them to be able to gain those community benefits. We wanna have a bottle, bottom line impact on, um, healthcare. And we know that, um, globally it's, it's $6 trillion in, um, impact, positive impact to the, the healthcare burden. So that's, that's the reason.

And I think that's, uh, Representative Shallenberger again, Thank you, chair. Do we already have the sub adopted for this?

Uh, I'd like to, wait, Wait, wait. Maybe not. Let's, let's check that. Yes, it was adopted in rules. Okay. It is. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. Okay. With that said, I'd like to make a motion for a, a positive, positive motion for HB 3 76 sub one out of our committee.

Thank you. So if it's okay, I'll have a director Curry come up with Me. Okay. Alright. Okay. Um, so thank you for having me, this bill. Uh, uh, so I'm, I've been lucky enough to be appointed to the Outdoor Adventure Commission. I've been able to work with Director Curry a lot, and it's, it's been, it's actually a lot. Really fun assignment. So, uh, but we're jealous. Yeah, It's, it's a great one. But, so this bill is fairly simple. It does three things. It, uh, renames an account because there are two accounts that have very similar names, and we always end up getting confused. So, uh, it just makes, it makes it more clear. The second thing is that, um, it formalizes the every kid outdoors, uh, uh, what do you call it? Program or it's an initiative. Initiative, yeah. So it's, it's, uh, it's been a really, there's been a pilot program and it's, it's been very successful and we, we like to see that, uh, be formalized. And then, uh, the third thing it does is it, uh, it allows for 2% of the fund to be used for administration. So it's, uh, uh, it takes people to administer it, and so it, it, it just, uh, formally allows that, so that, that's what the bill does.

That's okay? Sure. Jason Curry, division of Outdoor Recreation. Just wanna thank the sponsor for, uh, for bringing this bill forward. It does clear up some things, helps avoid confusion, and then, uh, and really gives us momentum on a very successful, uh, project fee every Kid Outdoors initiative. So, thank you.

Sorry, one more thing. It, oh, sorry. I, I believe the fiscal note is zero as well. Right? Right. So it, uh, it's not administering any, it's not providing new money, so, okay.

I'm, I'm curious 'cause it, it actually broadens how a restricted account can be used. So, so it really is kind of taking a fund that's there and now saying, oh, we want to use that for a broader purpose. Can you, can you explain what the initial, the existing fund did and why, why you need that broader in order to

Do this? Yeah, I think Director Curry probably explained that better than I I could

Sure. And that's a great question. The, uh, the fund and, and as the, the title that we're trying to fix does indicate it's infrastructure, and that's solely what the account was, was designated for. Um, and then in our strategic plan that was developed by Utah State University in coordination with the Outdoor Venture Commission, directed us to set up a process for distributing these funds. So what we've done is, is set up five regional councils around the state. And so we, we have kind of a grassroots and locally based effort to figure out how to prioritize the funds, takes a lot of work. Staff was charging to other accounts like grant accounts and things that it's not appropriate for them to be charging to in order to administer the, the needs of, of this account. So that's what it is. It doesn't, it doesn't include, um, you know, major hiring or anything like that. It's, it's mainly staff time that's currently being used. There is one, um, FTE that is a separate, separate, um, appropriation but not related to this.

Yeah. That's why I was kind of curious as to, uh, you know, expanding the government, I, I mean, expanding staff by using an existing account for other purposes. Right. And, and why, why do you need to do that? I'm just curious. I

Like to respond. Yes. Yeah. And so, as, as with all of our grants, we do have the ability to, to, it takes money to, uh, distribute money. And so most of the time it's somewhere between seven and 10% administrative, um, costs that we could use. And, and we, we don't feel like that's necessary. That's why we limit it to just 2% to be, um, more than conservative on this. Um, the other thing that it helps us do is in, uh, the, the agreement that was just signed last month with the governor and the Forest Service and the co-management that we'll be entering into, um, this will enable us to, to fund those efforts as well as we take management of some of the Forest Service trails and some of the Forest Service processes that, that they're gonna allow us to do. So where

Does the, where does the money come from inside this fund? I, I, I just, I'm trying to figure that out.

Yeah. It's, it's sales tax. It's a sales tax thing. Yeah. Okay.

This isn't expanding that. It's, it's already there. It's just expanding what you could use it for, right?

Correct. Okay. Any other questions?

Senator Juab? Yep. Thank you. Um, I move that we, uh, pass out favor favorably. HB 3 75 first sub.

Yes. Tha thank you. Yeah. Um, I, I'd appreciate your support. I, I think it's, uh, it's a fairly simple bill and it, and it will help the division, uh, uh, be able to administer what they, they need to do and kind of what they're already doing. I, I guess a little bit with the administrative cost that it has to go somewhere in there. The other, uh, funds are kind of a assuming it anyway, so I, I'd, I'd, I'd appreciate your support.

Thank you Mr. Speaker ProAm, uh, I've been working on this bill with the Division of Outdoor Recreation and it, it's very simple. It does, it does three things. Uh, one, it changes the name of the outdoor infrastructure, outdoor infrastructure restricted account. There's another account with a very similar name and they keep getting it mixed up. Uh, and then there, the second thing is it allows the account to include the Every Kid Outdoors Initiative where they ran a successful pilot on that and it, um, and it should, and it's, uh, a good, good way to help kids enjoy the outdoors. And, and third, it allows up to 2% of the fund, uh, of the account to be used on administration. So they've been, uh, uh, the, the, the account has been successful, but it does take a, a little bit of manpower to, to administer. So it, that's all it does. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.