With the long days and warm weekends of summer, there’s nothing I love more than getting outside.

I feel lucky to be a Michigan transplant this time of year, because I know the parks here are some of the best. With over 300,000 acres spread across 103 state parks and recreation areas, there’s a lot to explore.

So I joined millions of other Michiganders across the state and paid just $12 for my Recreation Passport. While that may be a small price to pay for access to the outdoors, a growing number of state and local government departments, including the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, are relying on fees to maintain public goods.

In 2021, only about 10% of the DNR budget came from state tax revenue, while over two-thirds was from license and permit fees.

And our parks aren’t the only area where fees or fines are an essential revenue source expected to make up for insufficient tax revenues.

Penal fines — a fine levied as punishment for a violation of the criminal code — are an important revenue-raiser for libraries, with smaller and more rural counties relying most on fines to fund library operations and programming.

Michigan’s county libraries collected on average $3.78 per person on penal fines in 2021, with rural areas relying more on that source of revenue. Penal fine revenue varies each year and remains an inconsistent source of revenue compared to property taxes, which tend to remain steady year over year.

Over the past 10 years, fines per capita averaged $2.36 in Presque Isle County, $4.24 in Alpena County, $4.65 in Alcona County, and $5.05 in Montmorency County, but were not stable during that time. Fines in Alcona County, for example, fell from a peak of $6.64 per capita in 2017 to just $2.26 per capita in 2018.

The reliance on less stable revenue sources makes it difficult for libraries to budget and afford the programming or resources communities need.

In 2019, public libraries collected nearly $25 million in penal fine revenue, twice the $12 million appropriated for libraries from the state general fund.

Insufficient revenues make it difficult to keep libraries open, even as they play a vital role as community centers by providing public space for meetings, free internet for job-seekers, and afterschool or summer programming for children.

Research shows fines and fees fail to efficiently generate revenue for essential state services. Collection and enforcement costs are higher for fines and fees compared to taxes, which are often collected automatically, such as in the case of sales taxes or payroll withholding. Fines and fees are not always collected automatically, and local governments can incur additional enforcement costs.

In addition to being less efficient, fines and fees are substantially less equitable. Unlike taxes, fines and fees do not take into account ability to pay and therefore fall more heavily on individuals with low incomes. Research has shown cities with larger Black and Asian populations are more reliant on fines, raising racial equity concerns about using fines and fees to pay for essential government services.

What we choose to pay for says a lot about our priorities as a state. When we can find $2 billion (17%) in the general fund to pay for the Corrections Department but only $48 million (1%) for the Department of Natural Resources, we are saying that we value prisons over parks.

Fines and fees are not a solution for insufficient tax revenues. That funding model for state goods and services that should benefit everyone is inherently unfair.

As policymakers debate the extent of tax cuts — should it be $1 billion or $2 billion? — we must ask ourselves how we plan to make up the difference.

Anne Kuhnen is a policy analyst at the Michigan League for Public Policy.