State eyes increasing cost of hunting, fishing licenses
Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 26, 2018
By Luke Thompson / Yakima Herald-Republic
A 12-15 percent increase in hunting and fishing fees could be part of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s solution to fill a projected hole of more than $30 million for the next budget cycle.
The agency’s policy director, Nate Pamplin, outlined a plan in a media webinar this week to ask the Legislature for an additional $63.6 million from taxpayers to meet its goals. He’s hopeful those efforts for the 2019-21 budget cycle set to begin next July will be more successful than similar requests two years ago and yield better long-term fixes.
“I think there was a real lack of trust in the department,” Pamplin said. “We spent a lot of this past legislative session doing a lot of outreach with legislators.”
That entailed workshops and other meetings to explain the lengthy process to improve efficiency and eliminate waste, which led to a proposal for $2.4 million in permanent reductions, including a controversial plan to close the Naches fish hatchery next summer. That still leaves a $30.4 million hole in a $436.6 million operating budget for this biennium.
Pamplin said with approval from the Fish and Wildlife commission at its August meeting, the department would ask for an additional $28.2 million to enhance its efforts, along with $5 million in private and local funding to bring the total requests to $63.6 million. Nearly a third would come from an increase in hunting and fishing licenses plus other small changes to recreation fees, while the rest would come from all taxpayers via the general fund.
Pamplin acknowledged the difficulty in asking anglers and hunters to pay more without a corresponding increase in opportunities, but he also noted the full cost of inflation since the last fee increase in the 2011-13 biennium would be closer to 25 percent.
The agency used a one-time general fund payment of $10.1 million and took several other actions to fill a $27 million budget hole for this biennium, such as delaying equipment purchases, waiting to fill open positions, and stopping the purchase of triploid trout to stock area lakes. But Pamplin said they’ve “exhausted one-time solutions” and want long-term funding for programs to ensure open positions will be filled, including two wildlife officers in Yakima’s region.
The agency’s long-term funding plan is due to the Legislature on Sept. 1.
