Idaho seeks corporate sponsor for state park funding

BOISE – Idaho’s state parks system is looking for corporate sponsors for signs, brochures, picnic shelters and the like as part of its effort to make the parks system largely pay for itself.

“We would hope to be able to acknowledge their donations on signage, printed materials and so forth,” parks Director David Langhorst told state lawmakers Monday. “While this kind of activity isn’t prohibited in state code, it isn’t expressly allowed.”

So at the suggestion of the Idaho attorney general’s office, the parks department will propose a bill this year to authorize such arrangements.

Already, Langhorst said, Airstream is working with the state to produce a 50th Anniversary Idaho State Parks trailer in the coming year. The department would get $500 from each sale, and the trailer’s interior would be decorated in a theme tied to Idaho parks.

“We’ve been trying to be creative,” Langhorst said.

He pointed to precedents in public higher education, like Nike swooshes on college sports uniforms and Boise State University’s Albertson Stadium and Taco Bell Arena. But Langhorst said the program would not include selling naming rights to the 30 state parks.

Idaho’s state Department of Parks and Recreation this year is getting $3.5 million in state funds, about 10 percent of its budget. Other funds come from fees, sales and charges; grants; a small slice of state gas taxes; and registration fees collected on boats, snowmobiles, motorbikes, ATVs and RVs. In fiscal year 2008, the department was allocated nearly $18 million in state general funds.