Stephen McDaniel St Augustine
The $17 Million Question Nobody Wanted to Ask Stephen McDaniel of St. Augustine, Florida on funding West Virginia's state parks
A free park system with a bill coming due West Virginia ran a 45-park system for years without charging a soul to drive in. Only nine states in the country operated that way. The bill came due anyway, in the form of lodges pushing 50 years old and a maintenance list nobody had budgeted for.
The list Stephen McDaniel inherited
7 million
$17 million
About 50
park visits a year
in yearly state subsidy
years old: the age of many lodge parks
He took over in February 2017, when Governor Jim Justice appointed him Director of the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
Free was never free “Many of our lodge parks in our system are approaching 50 years of age. We have a lot of deferred maintenance.”
Stephen McDaniel Somebody pays for a park. It is a math problem with a due date.
Two dollars is not a tax
$2
$12
7
$1.1M to $1.2M
per vehicle day-use fee
annual pass
pilot parks
projected first-year collection
Piloted at Babcock, Blackwater Falls, Cacapon Resort, Coopers Rock, Little Beaver, Pipestem Resort, and Valley Falls. It was meant to establish a principle, not close the gap on its own.
Deferred maintenance compounds •
A roof patched this year for a few thousand dollars becomes a roof replaced in five for many times that
•
Aging systems keep running and cost more in utilities every month they stay in service
•
The savings are imaginary and the cost is real
•
McDaniel came from business, where putting something off has a price
People were leaving too early
About 2 days
About 4.5 days
6 parks
average stay in West Virginia parks
national average stay
slated for two to three mile loop trails
“We have to give people more of a reason to stay in our parks,” McDaniel said.
What the investment bought
$151M+
22%
Endowment
directed into state park and forest improvements
growth in state park revenue in 2021, a record, against 2016
West Virginia State Parks Endowment, funded by oil and gas royalties from state land
Key takeaways •
Free park access still carries a cost, paid in deferred maintenance
•
A $2 per vehicle fee was meant to establish a principle, not close a $17 million gap
•
Longer stays and trails give visitors a reason to stay
•
An endowment keeps producing revenue after any single fee is spent
About Stephen McDaniel Stephen McDaniel of St. Augustine, Florida is a business owner and former Director of the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, a post he held from February 2017 to January 2022. He is sole proprietor of Mozark Mountain Tree Farm in Tucker County and co-owner of Readybox of WV, a portable storage container company serving most of North Central West Virginia.
Stephen McDaniel St Augustine