Mr. Colvin said he expected level state funding for the agency’s budget and the marine program budget this year. The Legislature had not enacted hunting and fishing license fee increases. The proposed Marine Disease and Pathology Laboratory at MSRC received a one time $500,000 appropriation from the Marine Resources Account of DEC. There would be no offset for the Marine Resources account, so this represented a considerable cut to normal activities. Mr. Wise added that another $500,000 for this lab had been added to SUNY’s budget. The lab’s annual operating cost should be $400,000 - $500,000; its start up costs would be around $1,000,000. The Legislature expected that this program would be up and running this year and make its own recommendations. In answer to Mr. Sullivan’s question, Mr. Wise explained that while this initiative had been precipitated by the lobster situation, the disease lab would focus on disease in all marine animals, including crustaceans, fish, mammals, and birds. The consortium administering the lab includes SUNY Stony Brook, NY Sea Grant, Long Island University, and Cornell University. It was emphasized that the money appropriated by the Legislature this year for the disease lab is only to establish the facility and fund its first year of operation. Continued support for the program’s operation needs to be secured beginning in Year 2. The Council discussed the desirability of having any further funding to DEC for support of the marine disease lab be added to the Department’s base budget, not taken out of that budget. This issue will be discussed at a future Council meeting.

Mr. Colvin reported to the Council that several staff positions in different units of the Bureau of Marine Resources have recently been filled and there is active recruitment for many of the remaining vacancies. He reported on several promotions of long-time bureau staff. Councilor King noted that the Crustaceans Investigations Unit still had only one staff--too few for such an economically important group of species. Mr. Colvin responded that the federal government had just allocated $13.9 million to help with the Long Island Sound lobster situation. $6.6 million is for research and assessment, which includes staff and monitoring. The rest will go directly to the fishermen. The money has been appropriated through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is expected to assign responsibility at least for the research part of the program to NMFS. DEC will meet July 21 with Connecticut, Sea Grant, and others to develop a coordinated spending plan for the Disaster Response Research Industry Assistance Program.