Mr. Gerry Barnhart, Director of DEC’s Division of Fish, Wildlife & Marine Resources, spoke to the Council regarding the State Conservation Fund, the primary fund that is used to finance programs for fish, wildlife and marine resource conservation in New York State.  The Conservation Fund represents 55-60% of the annual operating budget of the Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources, and 40-50% of the budget of the Division of Law Enforcement budget as well.  The Fund gets most of its revenue (90%) from sales of hunting, fishing and trapping licenses.  There are several different accounts within the Conservation Fund, including the Marine Resources Account, the revenue to which comes primarily from commercial fishing license & permit fees, with a lesser amount from penalties for violations of tidal wetlands sections of the Environmental Conservation Law.  Mr. Barnhart said that his remarks would focus on the main account of the Conservation Fund, not the Marine Resources Account.

The main account of the Conservation Fund pays for fresh water fisheries and wildlife conservation programs as well as law enforcement programs associated with fresh water fisheries.  Annual revenue to the main account is $39 – 40 million, after the fee increase for hunting, fishing and trapping licenses, which occurred in October 2002.  This revenue stream had been projected to reach $46 million/year but it has not reached that high.  To compound the sporting license revenue shortfall to the Conservation Fund, fewer State General Fund dollars are available for Division of Fish, Wildlife & Marine Resources programs, largely because of lower state tax revenues attributable to 9/11.  Lower license revenues and reduced support from the General Fund, combined with a significant increase in fringe benefit rates for state employees, have resulted in short fall in the Conservation Fund.  It was predicted that the Conservation Fund would have a deficit of about $3 million at the end of the last fiscal year, on 31 March 2005 and that this would quickly grow to more than $6 million by the end of June 2005. 

Mr. Barnhart stated that the Department took several actions to deal with these impending Conservation Fund deficits.  $1.5 million personnel costs in the Division of Fish, Wildlife & Marine Resources were moved from the Conservation Fund onto State General Funds.  This action saved $700,000 in fringe benefit costs.  The same thing was done in the Division of Law Enforcement where $1 million in ECO’s salaries was moved from the Conservation Fund to General Fund, saving an additional $440,000 in fringe benefits.  $1,700,000 in operating expenses was also transferred from the Conservation Fund to the General Fund.  As a result of these actions, the Conservation Fund ended the last fiscal year balanced and, depending on monthly revenue, it is basically wavering between a slight surplus and a slight deficit.  Mr. Barnhart noted that the greater part of the annual sporting license revenue comes in between August and the end of November.  The fund will go into the black as soon as the new licenses go on sale, on 15 August 2005.

The Department is projecting a cash deficit in the Conservation Fund at the end of this fiscal year (31 March 2006) of $4.5 million.  Additional action to avoid this deficit will include deferring making fringe benefit payments from the Fund and perhaps a restoration of additional monies from the General Fund.  Some personnel salaries may be removed from the Conservation Fund and placed onto federal grants.  Additionally, severe limits have been imposed on operating expenses.  Mr. Barnhart indicated that some marine resource program costs currently supported on the General Fund might be transferred to the relatively solvent Marine Resources Account.  This would free up space on the General Fund to receive additional transferred costs from the main account of the Conservation Fund.  In essence, the Marine Resources Account would help to support the Main Account of the Conservation Fund.

The Department is examining ways to increase revenue to the Conservation Fund; the options of greatest potential will require legislative action and could not be in place until next fiscal year.  Specifically, anglers who fish in fresh water for salmon and trout may be required to purchase a salmon/trout stamp in addition to the basic freshwater fishing license.  This is something that is done by many states in the Great Lakes area and the Northeast.  The now-voluntary $5 habitat access stamp may be made mandatory for non-resident license holders if they are going to hunt, fish or trap.  If all the alternatives under consideration were implemented, the additional annual revenue they would produce (@ $7 million) would render the main account of the Conservation Fund solvent for a year or two.

Regarding the potential transfer of personnel items in the Bureau of Marine Resources from the General Fund to the Marine Resources Account of the Conservation Fund, Mr. Barnhart reported that moving both 5 and 10 such positions had been looked at.  The Department will recommend that no more than 5 positions be transferred.  Mr. Barnhart noted that the Department might not make any such transfers.  Moving 5 positions onto the Marine Resources Account would deplete the balance in that account one year sooner than it now projected.  An additional source of revenue that the Department hopes will flow into both its freshwater fishing and the marine resources program is additional revenue through the federal grant-in-aid sportfish restoration program.  Separate transportation bills have been passed by the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.  A conference committee is resolving differences in appropriations between the two bills.  It is possible that one outcome of these negotiations is that the sportfish restoration program will receive all the federal marine fuel tax revenues, rather than 75% of those revenues, as is presently the case.  Capturing the full revenue stream would add approximately $1,000,000 to New York’s revenue from the federal sportfishing restoration program; $600,000 of that would go to fishery programs and the rest to boating safety programs.

Mr. Barnhart emphasized that the Department is doing what is necessary to get through this fiscal year.  It will be working with the Division of Budget and in the next legislative session to develop a longer-term solution to solve the structural deficit in the Conservation Flan.  Chairman Wise asked if the positions that might be transferred from the main account of the Conservation Fund to the General Fund, made possible by the transfer from the General Fund to the Marine Resources Account of up to five positions, would be positions within the Bureau of Marine Resources.  Mr. Barnhart responded that they would not.  Mr. Wise observed with chagrin that these transferals in essence represented a loss to the marine resources program in General Fund support at a time when the Council was attempting to work with the Department to identify new sources of revenue to support unmet marine resource program needs.

Councilor Danielson suggested that the Department should more actively advertise the habitat stamp to generate more income.  He also asked Chairman Wise whether he had communicated to the State Legislature the Council’s recommendation that General Fund support to DEC should be increased to meet the marine resources program needs identified some time ago by the Council’s Subcommittee on Marine Program Financing Needs.  Mr. Wise responded that he had sent a letter with this request some time ago to the Legislature.  He will provide the Council with copies of this correspondence.

Chairman Wise thanked Mr. Barnhart for his review of Conservation Fund issues.

 

Page last modified Saturday, August 20, 2005 by George E. Carroll