ORIGINAL: R.S.B.
ORIGINAL: Cornelius08
REsident hunting licenses compared.
West Virginia----------------$23.00
Georgia---------------------$19.00
Florida----------------------$17.00
Illinois-----------------------$13.00
New York--------------------$19.00
Pa---------------------------$20.00
Btb wants to point out that pa includes ringneck and turkey. Thats nice but most are DEER hunters. Second, it all evens out because some of the other states offer other things as well. Some have furbearers included (pa needs added stamp) some include feral hogs (which pa doesnt even have) others include both bow and muzzleloader within that fee...
Underpaying? Hardly. We are about average, and could be argued GROSSLY overpaying due to lack of management which we are paying for.
With the rediculously high increase, we'll be paying top dollar for the samemismanagement we are paying for now.
There is another major difference between those states you are comparing to Pennsylvania that everyone needs to take into consideration too.
I haven’t it looking for each of those states to be sure if they are all general fund states but I know most of them are. That means that since all of the tax payers in those states pay for wildlife management with money being allocated from the state budget their wildlife agency doesn’t have to rely on only the hunting license dollars.
If Pennsylvania were a general fund agency wildlife management being funded with more then just hunting license money maybe the cost of a hunting license wouldn’t need to increase as much or as often.
The bottom line is that the money to run each state’s wildlife programs has to come form somewhere. Hunter’s in this state have to date wanted to be the sole source of wildlife management funding and they are with the exception of the slight revenue from timber, minerals or restricted use federal funds so it will either cost them more or they will simply end up with less in wildlife management then states that are better funded with tax dollars.
In those general fund states the license fees just help augment the tax dollars being used for wildlife management. But, hey hunters in this state are afraid of that type of funding. I guess Pennsylvania hunters don’t trust their politicians enough to allow tax dollars being used in wildlife management like occurs in all those other states.
R.S. Bodenhorn
rsb,what needs to be done is every employee of PGC wages and title have to be examined.
where i worked, if our business went down, layoffs and consolidation had to happen.
was this good, yes and no.
do to lack of game in pa ,i think the PGC needs to reduce its size .i am saying this without knowing WAGES or POSITIONS in game commission.
only area i feel should be out limits is WCO AND LAND MANAGEMENT AREAS.
all programs should be looked at and DEER should be no.1 priority because thats area that brings in most money for PGC.
without good deer hunting, hunters numbers will continue to drop unless they make it deer hunting from oct to feb with any gun,i see that happening someday soon too.
butthat will reduce deer to nothing and how that affects hunter numberseven if they can hunt 5 months with rifle.
if bats are in trouble, let bat groups payPGC wages, not hunters.
same with birds, let the bird groups pay wages of the bird PGC .
same with deer hunters, let deer hunters pay for deer ,NOT FOR EVERYTHING ELSE.
i know PGC is obligated to take care of everything, bats, bugs, snakes but no longer can the hunters keep funding all these things with their dollars.
there was 10,000 hikers using woods last summer in a megastarnt thing at hyner, pa.
i was there.
not 1 of them bought a hunting license,yet theylove seeing birds and bats etc.deer too.
these people should be made to buy a PGC permit,say for 10 dollars to be able to go into woods and enjoy it.
also i bet you would double your volunteers if this was done.
i thing i see about these people is they have money and they do GET INVOLVED in woods etc.
there is 1 idea. other is smaller vehicles and more employees doubling up to ride to meeting and others should use their own vehicle.
positions should be check and i bet i could get rid of many and make more positions as WCO and LAND MANAGEMENT.
i would just like to see overtime that is spent.
we done away with overtime and made all of us SALARY.
we got more money but were on call 24/7.
also we were allowed to set our own hrs.
i would come in 1 day 8 am to 5,next 2 am to 7am,back out at 5 pm to 11pm.
if i had meeting, like at 10 am, i would come in and work 7 am to 4 pm.
this would be a big help on POACHING, no longer would you have to get permission on like said too me, SPROUL I ONLY HAVE 3 HRS LEFT TO CATCHJOE THE POACHER THIS MONTH.
trust me, being on salary was real nice for us, we made more than avg weekly wage as before and NO BOSSES to tell us when to come out or ok the overtime.