8236-R1_MSA_January2023

How DoWe budget for the Un-Known? By: Joe Higgins H ello, Maine Snowmobile Clubs & Riders,

ways. Both club and municipal grant now have the same deadlines to make it easier to remember (I hope), applications are due by December 1 st , 2022, and reimbursements are due by April 30 th , 2023. If you are thinking about purchasing a new groomer or drag, the application for this is due in by June 15 th , 2023. If you bought a new piece of equipment after July 30th, 2022, then it is still eligible for the FY23 Capital Equipment Grant Program. Give us a call if you have any questions about any of our grant programs. A call that I seem to be taking daily is “will there be any fuel assistance this season”? Believe me when I say I feel your pain and too are very concerned about the price of gas and diesel. We are all feeling the pinch at home with heating oil, groceries, and gas in our vehicles. If fuel continues to stay at these high prices, our clubs will have to make some tough decisions on the amount of grooming and schedule well. I’m sure you have all thought of this but rather than grooming five nights a week we may be grooming four nights a week. Or concentrate on grooming the high traffic trails and not groom the lesser traffic trails as much. Back to the initial question, will there be any fuel assistance? The answer is, I do not know. Here is how it works. We approve your club and municipal grant based on what we think the program will receive from this coming season’s snowmo bile registrations, those numbers are

averaged based on the last ten-years. So, if we have a great registration season then there could be some fuel cost help. But if we have a not so good registration season then there would not be any revenue for assistance. It will be between March 10th – 15th 2023 before I have a better feeling of where the state is regarding snow mobile registrations revenue and where we are in terms of expenses. We must get in the complete registra tion numbers for February and after school vacation to get any feeling of where the program is financially. Tough way to plan but that is how it works. Until that time, I would not be starting up my grooming operation until the middle of December or later if you can. And then hope we all bud geted correctly and will still be able to groom through March. IF the Snow mobile program is in a position and could help with the added cost of fuel it would work like this. Keep all your grooming fuel receipts for the sea son. Submit them by April 30th, 2023, so we can take what funding may be available and pay out a percentage of the receipts submitted. Like in the past, to be eligible a club must utilize all their existing club and municipal grants. If a club doesn’t spend all their existing grant, then they would not be eligible. We will be sure to let every club know if there is assistance just as soon as we know. Again, thanks for all you do and hope for lots of snow.

I hope you are all doing well and had great holidays.Anytimeweget tospend quality time with family and friends is a true gift. Enjoy every minute. As I sit here on December 13 th work ing on your club and municipal grants looking over the requests for the work needed, it amazes me year after year how you all make it happen.You make snowmobiling the best winter sports in the state of Maine and a sport that brings in 100’s of millions of dollars to the economy. A sport that creates jobs, fills restaurants and cafés, books hotels, cabins, and motels. You make it all happen by working with the pri vate landowners who generously lets us have a trail on their property. You build the bridges, cut the brush, and do all the grooming. My hat goes off to all the landowners and volunteers that do all this with no desire for rec ognition. You give us the opportunity to get outside and smell the fresh air and see the beautiful Maine. THANK YOU ALL. As you can imagine the State of Maine snowmobile office is extremely busy this time of year and I must mention my appreciation of Lana and Candice for all they do to keep our office moving in the right direction. This year we will be handling 353 club and municipal grant applications which were due December 1st, 2022. If you are reading this and haven’t sent them in: YOU’RE LATE. We’ve probably already contacted you any

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