Storm Warnings Part 2 -http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/conservation/article/0,13199,220769,00.html
by Bob Marshall

America' s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke. The answer, say some experts, is to share the load.

In the summer of 2000 Louisiana sportsmen got back-to-back shocks, the kind that are becoming familiar to hunters and anglers across the country.

First, the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said it would have to double license fees or shut down half of its services.

Then, after the fee hikes were approved, the other shoe dropped: The agency admitted the increases wouldn’t stave off disaster for long.

“This was only a temporary fix; we’ll be back in the same boat in a few years,” says James Patton, the agency’s deputy secretary.

The reason?

“Sportsmen’s license fees just can no longer pay the bills for everyone’s fish and wildlife,” he explains. “There are two real long-term solutions out there. We go with something like Missouri or something like CARA.”

Missouri and CARA. The words are familiar at fish and wildlife agencies across the country because they are the two life rafts that could keep them from drowning in a sea of red ink.

Missouri is shorthand for the Missouri Conservation Tax, a 1977 measure that dedicated one-eighth of 1 percent of a sales tax to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), making that state the first to tap all of its citizens for the cost of managing fish and wildlife.

CARA is the acronym for the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, a congressional plan that would divert billions of offshore oil royalties to state fish and wildlife agencies.

Sharing the Load
The money is sorely needed.

A yearlong examination by Field & Stream revealed that many of the nation’s fish and wildlife agencies are going broke because sportsmen’s license fees and excise taxes, long the primary support for most agencies, haven’t kept pace with the rising costs of management for more than a decade. As the funding mechanism for the world’s most successful fish and wildlife programs has failed, services have been cut back, resources are being neglected, and the infrastructure that supports public hunting and fishing is crumbling.

In a scramble to stop the bleeding, agencies have resorted to numerous funding schemes, from specialty license plates and lottery proceeds to sky-high nonresident license fees. But agency heads are near-unanimous in their beliefs that there is only one long-term solution: Nonhunters and nonanglers-the overwhelming majority of the population-must contribute on a regular basis.

Currently, nearly 70 percent of all fish and wildlife funding in the nation still depends on the declining pool of sportsmen-even though the businesses managed by those agencies pour billions in tax dollars back into the general economy, benefiting all citizens.

This conclusion troubles Rick Story, vice president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance. “As the economy tightens, nontraditional sources of funding will be diverted by the government to pay for social programs. You can bet your paycheck on it,” he says. “The best thing that can happen to wildlife in America is that more hunters, anglers, and trappers join our ranks. It’s the only way to ensure that adequate dollars will be there to take care of wildlife and wild places.”

Most experts, however, predict that the number of sportsmen will fall, not grow, in coming years. Right now, “there simply aren’t enough sportsmen to pay all the bills anymore,” says Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America. “If you want healthy fish and wildlife for the whole state, then everyone has to contribute, just like they do for roads and schools.”

And that leads to one of two alternatives, managers say: CARA or Missouri. “Missouri is the model most people would choose, because it is sound and dependable,” says Patton. “History has shown that.”

Indeed. Some states have agency-dedicated sales taxes that affect only sporting-related items. There are two drawbacks to those plans, critics say. First, the tax only touches a small proportion of the citizenry. Second, they are just another way of making sportsmen pay more. As the number of sportsmen declines, so does revenue.

The Power of Pennies
That isn’t the case in Missouri. From the start Missouri’s Conservation Sales Tax has applied to all purchases in the state. “Basically, we get one penny from every $8 spent in this state, no matter what it is spent on,” says Dan Witter, policy coordination chief at the MDC. “The people of this state long ago said, Yes, fish and wildlife are important to us. We want to do our fair share.

“So, as our economy has grown, so has the budget for the agency, allowing us to keep pace with increasing demands. The money is dedicated to the agency, and there is no sunshine clause. That means not only do we have adequate funding, but we also have stable funding. That’s very, very important.”

Last year the MDC budget was $142 million, the third largest in the nation. Significantly, sportsmen’s license fees contributed just $29 million, whereas the Conservation Sales Tax accounted for $88 million. The rest came from federal funds. The tax has made Missouri the easy national leader in per capita spending on fish and wildlife. In fiscal year 2000 that figure was about $26 per resident. Most states receive less than $1 per resident, and 19 states ask nothing of the general population, leaving sportsmen to foot the entire bill.

But those roles have been reversed in Missouri, where sportsmen contribute just 20 percent of their agency’s budget, the smallest such total in the nation. Yet they enjoy what many experts consider the finest all-around programs in America.

The tangible results of 25 years of statewide investment include more than 900,000 acres of public hunting and fishing lands, one of the nation’s top hatchery systems, award-winning outreach and education programs (for hunters, anglers, and nonconsumptive users alike), and one of the highest game-law compliance rates in the nation. And perhaps most important, Missouri has a growing number of licensed hunters and anglers in an era when most states are seeing a trend in the opposite direction.

Arkansas is the latest example of the effectiveness of the Missouri system. For most of its life the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) struggled with one of the nation’s smallest budgets. A Wildlife Management Institute evaluation showed morale was low and top performers were leaving the agency.

That began to change in 1996. After two previous failures, a coalition of conservation groups finally won a state referendum for a Missouri-style tax program. Since 1997, the Arkansas Conservation Sales Tax has taken one-eighth of 1 percent of a statewide sales tax and given 45 percent of that amount to the AGFC. Another 45 percent goes to the Department of Parks and Tourism, 9 percent goes to the Department of Heritage, and 1 percent goes to the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.

Results were immediate. The agency staff grew from 426 to 534, including 30 new game wardens. Some $12 million has been pledged to begin capital improvements for such critical infrastructure as lake dams, hatcheries, and boat ramps. And last year the AGFC completed the first of five $5 million regional nature centers, state-of-the-art facilities that are the home for nonconsumptive and hunting and fishing outreach programs. The fears of some sportsmen that hunting and fishing would be pushed aside when the agency’s main revenue source became nonconsumptive users have proved false.

“If anything, it means we now have more money to serve the needs of hunters and fishermen,” says Len Pitcock, director of communications for the AGFC. “Our nature centers are a good example. We run our hunter-education, boating-safety, and the Hooked on Fishing Not on Drugs programs from those facilities. None of those would have been possible without that tax. None of it.”

The public likes the changes. A recent poll by Responsive Management showed 89 percent of Arkansas residents give the agency two thumbs up.

“It’s the highest such rating in the nation,” boasts Pitcock.

Tapping a Financial “Gusher”
The logic of Missouri-style funding plans seems obvious, but their spread has been glacial. The two Ozark states-Missouri and Arkansas-remain the only two with such funding. Conservation groups that have studied the problem, such as the Izaak Walton League, say the anti-tax mood that has dominated politics for the last 15 years has sapped the necessary political will for such moves; no politician wants to run for office promising to raise taxes.

But there are signs that the public might be more receptive to such leadership. A poll by Responsive Management in Vermont showed that 85 percent of respondents would support such a tax in that state.

Financially strapped agencies say their only alternative to a sales tax is CARA. By tapping offshore mineral royalties, the bill would create a $3.1 billion package over 15 years to provide more than $350 million for states to manage wildlife conservation, recreation, and education projects.

When the economy was still humming in 2000, CARA enjoyed broad bipartisan support and actually made it through both houses of Congress, only to be picked apart in a joint meeting of House and Senate appropriation committees. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana reintroduced the bill in 2001, but the hope of passage is waning along with the nation’s flagging economy.

And that is terrible news not only for fish and wildlife, administrators say, but for the nation at large. Their organizations, which once only served the needs of hunters and anglers, now are performing vital functions for society at large. These are functions that speak to the general quality of life-not to mention the platforms that support recreation industries pouring billions into state economies.

“One of our principal problems is that the burden for all the environmental work we do has been placed on the shoulders of sportsmen,” says Eric Schwaab, director of fisheries services for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “There are many, many people who benefit from having healthy fish and wildlife populations, but no vehicle for them to pay their fair share.”

Fish and wildlife professionals think the answer lies in two words: Missouri and CARA. But how much longer can they-and we-afford to wait?


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Additional reporting by Scott Bestul, Philip Bourjaily, Gary Garth, Rich Landers, John McCoy, Doug Pike, Lawrence Pyne, and Bob Saile.