Exceptions can be found in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Texas, where state budget crises led the legislatures to completely defund the park agencies. Instead, the parks had to learn to survive from their own user fees. The Texas park agency decided to make park managers entrepreneurial. Parks that boosted their revenues or reduced their costs were rewarded with specified shares of the revenues or costs. This allowed the agency to keep all parks open despite the sudden termination of the state general funds that had previously accounted for 60 percent of park budgets.
Incentives count in the state forests as well.
The most profitable state forests are the ones that are funded exclusively out of a fixed share of the receipts they earn. The Washington Department of Natural Resources, for example, manages its 2 million acres with 25 percent of its revenues, and it earns more profits than all the other state forests put together. The second most profitable state forest system is Oregon's, where 36 percent of state forest revenues funds the forest system. Trusts without incentives can work if the trust beneficiaries actively monitor the trustees, but there is no guarantee that the trusts are truly as efficient as they can be. Incentives without trusts can work efficiently but are dependent on fickle legislatures.