Catskill Center Statement on Passage of FY 2023 NYS Budget
The Catskill Center applauds Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature for passing a Fiscal Year 2023 budget that includes vital funding for the continued operation of the Congressman Maurice D. Hinchey Catskills Visitor Center (CVC) along with historic funding for the Catskill Forest Preserve.
“We are grateful for the steady support from and strong partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that allows for the continued success and growth of the Catskill Park’s official visitor center,” said Jeff Senterman, Executive Director of the Catskill Center. “Many thanks to the strong leadership of our bipartisan Catskill Park delegation. We look forward to greeting more visitors than ever at the CVC, and invite them to browse our new exhibits as well as visit our Upper Esopus Fire Tower as part of the Catskills Fire Tower Challenge.”
The $150,000 for the CVC is part of the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), where it has been included for the past two years. The CVC opened in 2015, and sits on 60 acres of forest, fields, and wetlands in the hamlet of Mount Tremper, Ulster County.
The Catskill Center also praises Governor Hochul and state legislators for allotting an historic $8 million for the Catskill and Adirondack Forest Preserves, within a record-high $400 million EPF. This Forest Preserve funding is intended to help address issues of overuse, concentrating on environmental protection and visitor safety. In this funding, we’ll look to the state to help us carve out money for our successful Catskill Stewards Program, which goes a long way toward educating visitors to recreate responsibly in Catskills hot spots such as Kaaterskill Falls and Peekamoose Blue Hole.
The final state budget also includes funding for programs with which the Catskill Center is involved: $100,000 for the Catskill Science Collaborative; $500,000 to Cornell University to maintain the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) biocontrol lab; and $1 million for improvements at Belleayre Ski Center.