Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative · Article 19 of 24
The funding value is the one managers and businesses both ranked as failing. Land managers named funding as the first hurdle to implementation. Only 16 percent of industry respondents thought stewardship funding was sufficient. The task force evaluated six methods and refused to pick a single winner. Partnerships, the chapter says, sit inside every option. The mix is supposed to be chosen project by project during implementation. A new GOCO stream for regional-partnership implementation had been announced as the plan was being finished, on top of continued Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnerships funding.
Option A: a special tax
A tax needs a boundary, a minimum reliable yield, and agreement among municipalities on the amount, the collection, and who manages the fund. Forms listed include sales tax, property tax, an outdoor-retailer tax, a hotel or motel tax, and a tourism tax such as Colorado Springs’ lodgers and automobile rental tax. Challenges: some communities will not pass another tax, structures do not align easily, and revenue moves with the economy. Opportunities: a designed mix of residents and visitors, a special district or parks district, and a voluntary checkout donation. Models cited include Chaffee County, Five Rivers MetroParks, Estes Valley Recreation and Park District, and Summit County, Utah’s RAP tax.
Option B: user fees
Day fees or annual passes, online or on site, are the familiar model at state and national parks and on some trails. Challenges: fees can exclude people and can discourage use, and a mosaic of ownership still needs agreements so the fee means the same thing on the next parcel. Opportunities: operations covered, fees adjusted to conditions, and use organized by number, type, and season. Models include Moab, the Mickelson Trail, Arkansas Headwaters, the North and South Slope, Rocky Mountain and Mount Rainier national parks, State Forest State Park, and the Boundary Waters.
Option C: a state recreation area
Colorado has 42 state parks under CPW, some on state land and some across several owners. The challenge is navigating multiple agency rules. The opportunities named are the Keep Colorado Wild Pass, consistent operations, and sustainable management. Cheyenne Mountain State Park and Arkansas Headwaters are the local and regional examples.
Options D, E, and F
A collective impact fund pools philanthropy, grants, public-private money, existing budgets, match, and user contributions. It multiplies small gifts and is only as steady as its donors. Local models include the Pikes Peak Community Foundation, the National Forest Foundation, and the PPORA Stewardship Fund. A multi-jurisdictional agreement — memorandum of understanding, memorandum of agreement, or cooperative management agreement — is expected to appear in almost any path. The plan distinguishes them: an MOU shares goals, an MOA typically binds funding, a CMA can share costs and operations. “No change” is printed as a real option. Its opportunities line is blank. The challenges are the ones the rest of the plan documents: demand and resource change that no longer fit agency-by-agency staffing and budgets.
Source: Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative Vision Plan 2025, prepared through the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance as the local Colorado Outdoor Regional Partnership, with support from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Great Outdoors Colorado. Project team: PPORA, Trails and Open Space Coalition, N.E.S. Inc., Bachman PR, and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Geography Department. The plan was written across a four-year process and released in 2025; some statistics reflect a point in time before publication. Funding Methods, pages 106–111.
