LANSING –At Tuesday's House Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources meeting, Chairman Mike Lahti (D-Hancock) made his feelings clear on last year's efforts to promote hunting and fishing license fee increases.
"The good news after last year's efforts to promote hunting and fishing license fee increases is that we did not need one," Lahti said. "The fee bills and the promotion of them were a disaster."
Possibly because of the historic difficulty that the department has in getting a license fee increase passed (the last one was over 10 years ago) the first recommendation from the study group and the natural resources commission caused universal sticker shock. This recommendation was later modified to spread the increase over 5 years.
The past year included threats from the department of major cuts, layoff notices were sent out and warnings of state park closures. Hunting and fishing support organizations were asked to meet with the governor to show support for the DNR. This resulted in a promise of $4,000,000 of general fund money to go to the department to alleviate the need for fee increases in that tough budget year.
But since the department did not spend its game and fish appropriation and since more licenses were sold and some added investment income was realized the game and fish fund ended with a $10,000,000 surplus, or 16% of the appropriated budget. This amount is 6 million more than expected.
So, $4 million from general fund and the fee increases were not needed and the department lost credibility. It looked like they "cried wolf". Lahti said, "The department's proper action should have been stopping the fee increase and general fund requests when the higher than expected game and fish fund surplus was apparent." He said it would have been the right thing for the department to do.
According to Lahti, his Natural Resources committee held public hearings in Houghton, St. Ignace and Cadillac which demonstrated a couple things. First, there is a lot of support for our natural resources. Second, hunters and anglers who pay license fees want more of our citizens to share in supporting our natural resources which everyone enjoys.
"I am looking forward to co-chairing a workgroup with Senator McManus to look for alternative methods of funding the DNR," said Lahti. "I also look forward to working with DNR Director Humphries – also a member of the workgroup."
The current surplus will only carry the department through this year and next year after which more funding will be needed. Whatever the workgroup recommends other than fees or if fee increases are needed in the future the department must do a better, more transparent job of showing the need and communicating this need to the public and the legislature.
Lahti appreciated the cooperation of Director Humphries in keeping the winter ski areas and campgrounds open after budget director Bob Emerson, appropriations chairman George Cushingberry and Lahti pledged their support behind $500,000 in additional funding for the DNR.
Lahti ended the meeting by stating, "The DNR must learn from this experience and work toward improving public faith in the department."