To be honest, I really don't feel I am knowledgeable enough yet to have an opinion of him one way or another. I'm trying to keep an open mind and not let my political tendencies sway my judgement as I research. Part of the problem is that I'm sure a good portion what I've read in the past few days is either skewed or plain wrong. It's really difficult to discern fact from fiction when it comes to politics and issues like this.

After conduction some searching, I did find the DNR's appropriations for the past three years. They were as follows:

2011 - $288,991,800
2012 - $251,153,300 (Reduced by 13.1% from '11 to '12)
2013 - $217,180,800 (Reduced by 13.5% from '12 to '13; 24.8% from 11' to '13)
http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/...et%20FINAL.pdf

This is a very significant decrease but not all that surprising with the state of the economy in Illinois. What I found even more concerning is that I have not been able to locate a breakdown of how the DNR's budget is spent. This should be public record. Maybe I just haven't looked in the right place yet, but if it hasn't been published, we should demand that it be!

I did some further research and came up with the following:

2011 - Appropriated $288,992,000 Actual Expenditures $174,391,000 (60.3% of what was appropriated)
2012 - Appropriated $251,153,000 Actual Expenditures $170,043,000 (67.7% of what was appropriated)
http://www.state.il.us/budget/fy2013...tingbudget.pdf
http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/...BudgetBook.pdf

I don't completely understand how appropriations work, but it seems strange that the DNR is using only 60-70% of the funds they are allocated!

PM I like your approach. You have more patience than me. It does seem quite strange about only using 60-70%. But then again if We had political or state jobs we'd understand it a lot better. Good luck with your findings.
Maybe it's just that Mother Nature has decreased the herd of deer?

I'm not a Grassy knoll kind of guy but I did stay at a Holiday Inn!

You work on the truth! I'll work on conspiracy end of it! Deal?!

PM needs to redo his stats as there is no way that the IDNR is getting hundreds of millions like he is showing in his last post. The Wyoming G&F budget, for instance, is only 70+ million dollars!

The IDNR covers alot more then just game and fish, would be the sum of other offices like state forestry, mining, museum, etc. So they are allocated a much larger budget.

But that still doesnt solve your questions PM. Your two links didnt work for me probably because they are PDF links or just my computer. What you need to do is seperate the allocated portions out that dont deal with fish and game and that would give you better numbers and allow you to see whether that department is either over or under utilizing their budget are not. Another thing you also may want to take into consideration is how much of that budget was set aside for grants. If it is a set amount and the grant program was either denying alot of grant applications or was not being applied to nearly enough then that would also show some budget being left over. The better question then would be what they do with that is left over?

Good points salty! I'll work on revising the numbers to give a better, more realistic view of their budget.

I'm not sure why the links weren't working but I compiled all the budget numbers into a spreadsheet.

On one of the other forum pages, this reply was sent to me:



I just sent the DNR a question asking them why the deer population in the state is being lowered? I also told them that my hunting partners and I havent filled our gun tags in several years and next year we are going to save our money and only buy 1 gun tag each. I also said that we are considering going to other states to hunt deer. Here is the response I got from Tom Micetich Deer Project Manager


Your email was forwarded to me for reply. You asked why deer numbers were being lowered in Illinois.

The General Assembly, responding to citizen complaints of "too many" deer and negative deer-human interactions -- deer-vehicle accidents, human deaths, crop and other property damage -- established the Legislative Deer Population Control Task Force in 2007. That body gave us goals for deer-vehicle accident (DVA) rates for each county and statewide in their 2008 report to our agency. Their recommendation was to lower statewide DVA rates by 14% from the 2003 level, or about 11% from that of 2007. Herd reduction was necessary where DVA rates needed to be lowered. That is what we have done. As counties reach their goal rates, they are removed from the late antlerless seasons. There have been about a dozen, or so, that have been removed in the past two years. Pending 2013 data analysis, there are a number of others which will come out next year.

There are counties which remain well above their goal accident rates which do not have adequate doe harvest. In those counties, increased doe harvest is necessary if we are to curb herd growth, and/or reduce deer numbers. Keep in mind that even in counties with relatively high deer numbers there are places with "not enough" deer; and, conversely, counties with relatively low numbers that have "hot spots" of too many deer.

If deer numbers where you are hunting have declined to less than desirable levels, then you should back off your doe harvest. Just because a season is offered (ie., late-winter antlerless only) does not mean you must hunt it. You may want to talk with those hunting surrounding property to share your concerns. Problems exist when neighbors have differing ideas for managing the same deer. While you may want more, a neighbor who has lost acres of crops to deer may have other ideas, for example.

I hope this answers your question. If you should have any other deer-related questions, comments or concerns, feel free to drop me an email at any time.

Tom


Tom Micetich
Deer Project Manager
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
700 S. 10th Street
Havana, IL 62644
ofc - 309/543-3316 ext 231
fax - 309/543-6914


To me, this is the one of the most incriminating and infuriating responses I could imagine from the DNR. To me "citizen complaints" = "insurance company pressure".

For those of you wondering, here is a list of the people who made up the Deer Population Control Task Force Mr Micetich is referring to:

JOINT DEER POPULATION CONTROL TASK FORCE
Joint Task Force Members (15 members)

•Director Sam Flood, Illinois Department of Natural Resources
•Representative Dan Reitz, Chairman of the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Representative Jim Sacia, Minority Spokesman, House Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator John Sullivan, Chairman, Senate Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator Gary Dahl, Minority Spokesman, Senate Agriculture and Conservation Committee
•Senator Gary Forby, Appointed by the President of the Senate
•Mr. Jim Riemer, Jr., Appointed by the Senate Minority Leader
•Representative Robert Flider, Appointed by Speaker of the House
•Representative David Reis, Appointed by Minority Leader of the House
•Officer Jason Sherman, Conservation Police Officer Appointed by IDNR Director
•Director Larry Trent, Director of State Police
•Mr. Jerry Beverlin, United Bowhunters of Illinois
•Mr. Jim McFarlane, Illinois Federation of Outdoor Resources
•Mr. Kevin Martin, Illinois Insurance Association
•Mr. Henry Kallal, Illinois Farm Bureau

Joint Task Force Technical Support Group
-Mike Conlin, Director of the Office of Resource Conservation
-John Buhnerkempe, Chief of the Division of Wildlife Resources
-Paul Shelton, Forest Wildlife Program Manager
-Tom Micetich, Deer Project Manager
-Marty Jones, Urban Deer Project Manager
-Chris Hill, Systems and Licensing Manager
-Brian Clark, OLE License and Permit Program Manager

From that list your best points of contacts to ask questions would be Beverlin and Mcfarlane. All others will without a doubt be under someone else's thumb or in their pocket. You guys have big issues from what I been looking at with the way the departments have been set up and who all has influence.