Forest Service Fees Too Low, Government Audit Says

Looking for a vacation bargain? Try a lakefront cabin in a national forest.

A lot along Minnesota’s Lake Winnibigoshish can be had for a fee of $355 a year, less than a third of what it should be, according to congressional auditors who say people are being charged too little to use national forests.

The Forest Service, which charges fees for cabin sites and commercial operations like marinas and guide services, doesn’t even recover the cost of handling the permits, according to a new report by the General Accounting Office.

Fees for cabin lots are based on appraisals done in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fees for commercial operations are based on a system that hasn’t been updated in nearly 30 years, the GAO said.

Similar criticisms have been leveled at other fees charged by the Forest Service and the National Park Service, which in the next few months is phrasing in sharp increases in fees for entry and various services.

“You see across the board the charges that the government imposes are usually much lower than what you’re going to see from the private sector or even state governments,” said Jerome Uher, a spokesman for the National Parks and Conservation Assn.

The Forest Service collected $36.7 million in recreation fees in 1994, the latest year for which the total was available.

Marinas and other commercial operators in national forests usually are charged less than 3% of their gross sales, while fees on state-held land are typically 5% to 15% of gross sales, according to the GAO, which is the investigative arm of Congress.

In Colorado, for example, marina operators pay fees of 7% on state land and 2.8% in national forests.

For cabins, the Forest Service fee is set at 5% of the land’s appraised value and then increased each year according to the Consumer Price Index, an estimate of the cost of living. Those increases haven’t kept pace with the rise in land values, the GAO said.

Along Lake Winnibigoshish in the Chippewa National Forest, a typical lot is appraised at $3,900. That’s $18,400 less than what county assessors estimate it is worth, the GAO said. Based on the county estimate, the annual fee would be $1,115, not the $355 charged by the Forest Service.

Forest Service officials agree that the fees are too low.

“They’re not up to date because they’re based on appraisals done 20 years ago,” said Kevin Heikkila, a realty specialist for the Chippewa National Forest.

The forest’s 290 cabin sites are scheduled to be reappraised this year. New appraisals were issued in 1988, but they were dropped after the cabin owners appealed, Heikkila said.

The Forest Service has little incentive to keep the fees up to date because the agency can’t keep the additional money to cover the extra workload, GAO said.

As a result of such criticism, Congress is allowing 80% of the increased collections at national parks to stay with the park that collects the money.