Fish and Game Faces Budget Shortfall

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Hunters, anglers, conservation and wildlife groups met to discuss long-term funding strategies for New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Department.
The department – which is primarily supported through fees for hunting and fishing licenses – needs one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half million dollars in the short term just to avoid layoffs this spring.
But Fish and Game Executive Director Lee Perry laid out an even bleaker financial picture to wildlife groups.
“In order to be able to meet expenses we’ve been doing a couple of things; one, we’ve been cutting back costs, but secondly; we’ve been cutting into the fund balance. We’ve actually been borrowing from our long-term savings. And what the end result has been, if things continue to go the way they’re going, in 2009, the Fish and Game fund is essentially going to be down to zero or be broke”

Perry says in the past they’ve met budget deficits by increasing licensing fees for hunters and anglers.
But he says raising fees -- which are already the priciest in New England – is no longer a viable option.
“unfortunately we’re at a point where people are not participating at the same rate anymore in either hunting or fishing, we’ve lost about 25-percent of our hunters, and lost about 10-percent of our fisherman since 1995, and we’re also seeing not only a decline in the numbers of people, but also an inability to pay anymore money.”

The Department has asked Governor Lynch to put one-point-six million of general funds into their budget as a stopgap measure.
But Perry says the department really needs an estimated six million annually to keep programs stable.
Fish and Game officials have proposed long term funding that includes using four-percent of the money raised for the general fund through the state’s rooms and meals tax.
They also want to require a ten-dollar conservation decal for kayaks, canoes, and rowboats and to institute a saltwater licensing system.
Bruce Clendenning with the Appalachian Mountain Club says it may take some heavy lobbying to get the proposals approved.
“For that conservation decal on non-motorized boats to work we need to really be working together with these user groups there’s been a great deal of controversy about that issue in the past, it’s something that makes a lot of sense but we really need to work better on that to make that partnership stronger.”

Merrimack Republican Representative Bob L’Heureux with the Fish and Game Committee says more fish and game club representatives need to show up to legislative hearings to lobby legislators for more money.
1551 2:07 if you had people from each organization go up and testify the impact on the finance committee, or any other committee, would be astronomical, unless the people get out there and testify and support the legislation being proposed we’re going to have some real serious problems.

Part of L’Heureux’s concern also stems from legislation proposed by Republican Representative Lee Quandt from Exeter.
He’s asking for a study commission to look at whether Fish and Game could be absorbed by other state departments.
Quandt says revenue problems seem to plague the department, and no funding proposals should go through until the financial picture is studied.
2:50 I don’t think much about them until we have a chance to look at the whole department, we may be able to provide the exact same services to the people of NH and the people who go fishing, for less money

The Fish and Game Department also faces an audit, which Quandt hopes will determine why he says it keeps running into revenue problems.
Executive Director Lee Perry remains optimistic about the department’s future – and that the audit won’t find any wrongdoing.
Fish and Game officials will likely tweak some of the proposals before working on introducing legislation to help with the budget shortfall.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.