Jeopardizing our Outdoor Heritage
Lasee’s Notes
Are increased license fees causing casual hunters and fishermen to leave Wisconsin’s woods and waterways? Should you care if you don’t hunt or fish? Yes and Yes. And here’s why.
Hunting and fishing is big business in Wisconsin. Our sporting heritage fuels a large part of the economy. Each year hundreds of thousands of people make a personal investment in our outdoor traditions by purchasing a hunting or fishing license – to the tune of $70 million in the last two years. Then think of all the gear, gas, and eating that happens because of these sports.
It is understandable that hunters and anglers expect the DNR to spend their license fees supporting hunting and fishing.
An audit was done of the Fish and Wildlife Accounts to track sporting dollars. The Legislative Audit Bureau found that over 90% of the license fees were used for programs related to hunting and fishing in 2004-2005. The DNR is spending the money appropriately in most cases. Except for the $7.5 million that went to administrative costs, but that’s another issue.
There is reason for concern.
The audit raised a red flag to the fact that interest among younger generations has sharply decreased as have license sales. And the DNR has overspent on fishing and hunting programs for several years. The account is nearly empty.
Money doesn’t magically appear. The DNR takes money from other areas and spends it on policing, maintaining, and improving forests, lakes, and other wild resources.
The Governor and the legislature have also siphoned off millions of dollars from the DNR accounts and used it to backfill spending in other areas. In this budget alone, the Governor took nearly $32 million from the Forestry account to spend on other government programs.
These accounting gimmicks create the illusion of a balanced budget. In reality what we have done is create structural deficits. Structural deficits are caused by using a one time source of money for ongoing programs. Or using moneys collected for one government service to do another.
The DNR used these deficits (created by the Governor and legislature’s pilfering) to push for higher license fees. Then we played along.
This fee increase contributes to license sales declining.
Our robbing Peter to pay Paul mentality has fed the Wisconsin government spending machine and is threatening our outdoor heritage. We must be careful of how high fees are raised and do we really use that fee money for the promised service. We need to stop raiding other funds and raising or continuing those fees to pay for non-related services.
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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.
Are increased license fees causing casual hunters and fishermen to leave Wisconsin’s woods and waterways? Should you care if you don’t hunt or fish? Yes and Yes. And here’s why.
Hunting and fishing is big business in Wisconsin. Our sporting heritage fuels a large part of the economy. Each year hundreds of thousands of people make a personal investment in our outdoor traditions by purchasing a hunting or fishing license – to the tune of $70 million in the last two years. Then think of all the gear, gas, and eating that happens because of these sports.
It is understandable that hunters and anglers expect the DNR to spend their license fees supporting hunting and fishing.
An audit was done of the Fish and Wildlife Accounts to track sporting dollars. The Legislative Audit Bureau found that over 90% of the license fees were used for programs related to hunting and fishing in 2004-2005. The DNR is spending the money appropriately in most cases. Except for the $7.5 million that went to administrative costs, but that’s another issue.
There is reason for concern.
The audit raised a red flag to the fact that interest among younger generations has sharply decreased as have license sales. And the DNR has overspent on fishing and hunting programs for several years. The account is nearly empty.
Money doesn’t magically appear. The DNR takes money from other areas and spends it on policing, maintaining, and improving forests, lakes, and other wild resources.
The Governor and the legislature have also siphoned off millions of dollars from the DNR accounts and used it to backfill spending in other areas. In this budget alone, the Governor took nearly $32 million from the Forestry account to spend on other government programs.
These accounting gimmicks create the illusion of a balanced budget. In reality what we have done is create structural deficits. Structural deficits are caused by using a one time source of money for ongoing programs. Or using moneys collected for one government service to do another.
The DNR used these deficits (created by the Governor and legislature’s pilfering) to push for higher license fees. Then we played along.
This fee increase contributes to license sales declining.
Our robbing Peter to pay Paul mentality has fed the Wisconsin government spending machine and is threatening our outdoor heritage. We must be careful of how high fees are raised and do we really use that fee money for the promised service. We need to stop raiding other funds and raising or continuing those fees to pay for non-related services.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.
posted by John Q Cheesehead | 11:53 AM
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