“I will take every dime…” NE LB1413

[BourbonSnowCone]

Erdman sounds like a blowhard trying to get someone’s attention with a bill that he knows is going nowhere.

He sounds to me like a poor fisherman looking for someone to blame. Typical R state legislator beating on their favorite punching bag: the state fish and game agency. Always on the lookout for a straw man.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Ok my last post but I’d like to think we are not running any G&F into the poorhouse, I’m not advocating for that. And running on a multiple-year budget to smooth out year to year variance is wise and I hope occurs. But take CO for example. This is not a lightly funded operation.. 209 million in revenue. 191 million in spending. 18 million surplus. Do they need to deliver another 18 next year, and the year after… and forever? Why not 20? Why not 50? Do they have a not-to-exceed on their bank account after which money is returned to the public as a dividend check? Just asking some basic questions of what is the PLAN. The answer can’t or shouldn’t be, we don’t know and you don’t have the right to ask, cause…wildlife.

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Post up their budget along with what the agency has for accounts, etc.. Some of that could be unspent authority that is getting spent a bit later due to delays, some may be a statutory "rainy day" account, but until we know the whole budgeting picture, I'm not sure the graphs give us enough information.

I'd like to use a lifeline though, and phone @Oak about the CPW budget.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Ok my last post but I’d like to think we are not running any G&F into the poorhouse, I’m not advocating for that. And running on a multiple-year budget to smooth out year to year variance is wise and I hope occurs. But take CO for example. This is not a lightly funded operation.. 209 million in revenue. 191 million in spending. 18 million surplus. Do they need to deliver another 18 next year, and the year after… and forever? Why not 20? Why not 50? Do they have a not-to-exceed on their bank account after which money is returned to the public as a dividend check? Just asking some basic questions of what is the PLAN. The answer can’t or shouldn’t be, we don’t know and you don’t have the right to ask, cause…wildlife.

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Colorado, the state that screwed up its budget so bad that it decided to skip paying every state employee for a month and then double pay them the first month of the next fiscal year

They didn’t have the funds to fix the issue for a decade.

When I worked for the state you didn’t get paid for June then got 2 paycheck in July. Pay periods were also once a month.

State got to the point they had to call mortgage lenders and tell them not to penalize their employees.

Total nightmare.

Not to mention our Governor would love to see hunting done away with and our representative to Congress wants to get rid of PR. Attacks on CPWs funding are coming from both parties.

CPW should keep an ample reserve.

 

[The_Jim]

It sounds like the governors budget director is no longer recommending the sweep because we would lose our eligibility for federal dollars. Hopefully it works out that way.

Those robo emails only mean so much to an elected official. See attached…

 

[Ben Lamb]

It sounds like the governors budget director is no longer recommending the sweep because we would lose our eligibility for federal dollars. Hopefully it works out that way.

Those robo emails only mean so much to an elected official. See attached…

Form emails are the fast food of activism. Tastes good, but it's really just crap.

 

[perma]

Form emails are the fast food of activism. Tastes good, but it's really just crap.

Howl does the same thing for targeted emails where they make a prestatement for you before you ship it. I think the ‘strength in numbers’ mentality is there, but that frog does have a point.

 

[Trial153]

politicians fall somewhere between drug dealers and loggers on my dishonest( Sc umbag) scale. It’s a sliding scale and it moves however the hold pretty steady!!

 

[Wyhunter]

Ok my last post but I’d like to think we are not running any G&F into the poorhouse, I’m not advocating for that. And running on a multiple-year budget to smooth out year to year variance is wise and I hope occurs. But take CO for example. This is not a lightly funded operation.. 209 million in revenue. 191 million in spending. 18 million surplus. Do they need to deliver another 18 next year, and the year after… and forever? Why not 20? Why not 50? Do they have a not-to-exceed on their bank account after which money is returned to the public as a dividend check? Just asking some basic questions of what is the PLAN. The answer can’t or shouldn’t be, we don’t know and you don’t have the right to ask, cause…wildlife.

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18 million surplus is less than 10% of their operating costs. It woul take almost 11 years of getting 18 million over budget, just to have 1 year of a slush fund. Thats in a perfect scenario where they dont have a big winter kill of, or utilize any of the surplus for other reasons.

I think its reat that they are operating in the green instead of relying on lobbying for more money from the state.

That being said, I agree that they should have a report indicating where all dollars are spent/saved/invested.

 

[Dougfirtree]

I call it thinking ahead. What happens when say, oh, I don't know, large portions of Wyoming have 70% winter kill on pronghorn or deer?

Pretty nice to have some cushion so you don't have to lay off your biologists or hold a bake sale to keep the lights on.

Also, many things in wildlife management move pretty fast and having some spare change to say, acquire a fishing accessory site, great access to a quality ranch through an access program, etc is a good place to be. Some things you get one crack at, it sucks when lack of funds causes opportunities to be lost.

I don't want my GF agency running on a shoestring budget.

And once they are operating on a shoestring budget, they'll be dramatically more vulnerable to whatever politics are running the show in that state at that time. Financially strong game agencies are going to be better positioned to make good decisions for the resource.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Howl does the same thing for targeted emails where they make a prestatement for you before you ship it. I think the ‘strength in numbers’ mentality is there, but that frog does have a point.

It doesn't work. Legislators at the state level just delete form emails. A personalized email or phone call carry 10 times the weight.

 

[Forkyfinder]

In addition to the comments about a surplus not being the worst thing - theres a ton of money that can be invested in aquiring access, improving habitat, etc. Its not like there is no demand for improving that for the people who bought those tags in the first place.

The whole reason govts are so ineffective with money is beause all of it needs to end up at or near 0, even in the "best" years and then bad years happen. I think an economic slowdown (like 2008) that challenged NR recreation would cripple a lot of state agencies.

 

[Gellar]

On some of the federal programs like FEMA an agency has to pay for the expenses and are reimbursed. It is impossible to budget for natural disasters so a “special projects account” is necessary to pay those expenses from. The reimbursement process is often cumbersome and time consuming. On other projects a grant may be awarded in the middle of the budget cycle where they require an 80/20 match that an agency is not able to budget for because they either didn’t know about the opportunity during the budget process or they had not been awarded the grant during budget time.

 

[TOGIE]

par for the course with what seems to be going on in nebraska's statehouse and governors mansion the last couple of years. massive financial decisions made purely out of political spite and stroking the base.

 

[TheTone]

It doesn't work. Legislators at the state level just delete form emails. A personalized email or phone call carry 10 times the weight.

If they read emails at all. I’d guess my response rate is less than 10% and the usual responses have been something like “I disagree and the public can’t change my mind, to sorry I voted against your wishes because you’re wrong, and I’m just way too busy to communicate with constituents and never read my emails”

 

[Oak]

I'd like to use a lifeline though, and phone @Oak about the CPW budget.

C'mon, man, it's Friday.

The impetus for CPW pursuing the Future Generations Act, which passed in 2018, was primarily to deal with a huge backlog of dam rehabilitation, fish hatchery renovation, capital construction, technology upgrades, etc. Of course in passage, the legislature added their own priorities for the agency as well, and required annual reporting on the progress being made on the identified goals. You can read those reports (under Annual Reports) here.

Clearly, the priorities I listed above require long-term planning and execution, so the agency is not going to spend down revenue earmarked for those projects annually.

*I'm not looking for another pissing match over the Future Generations Act. Thank you.

 

[perma]

C'mon, man, it's Friday.

Thanks for your wisdom. You may have the rest of the day off.

 

[brocksw]

@Bullshot something else to consider and to build on what was previously said, I can't speak to specifics on how NE or CO do things, but I know with our Game and Fish agency (I presume many others are nearly identical), they have to go to the legislature for spending authority (i.e. set their biennial/annual budget). They take not one single penny from the general fund, but they have to go to the legislature to propose their budget and gain spending authority over their own money.

That is all to say that just because they have the money to go buy 640 acres of land to create a new WMA, doesn't mean the legislature will give them the spending authority to do so in the portion of their budget designated for land acquisition. Just because they have the money to drop 25 million on a habitat initiative, doesn't mean the legislature will let them. Just because the legislature might approve that habitat initiative, doesn't mean they will also approve the FTEs needed to deliver that iniaitive on the ground. This is how some of the political games get played.

But my point is that it's a lot more complex than just revenue/expenditure, and writing checks willy nilly for whatever the sportsmen want on any given year. The agencies themselves only have a certain degree of control over how much money sits in their "bank account" and how they can use it.

 

[BuzzH]

@Bullshot something else to consider, and I can't speak to specifics on how NE or CO do things, but I know with our Game and Fish agency (I presume many others are the same), they have to go to the legislature for spending authority (i.e. set their biennial budget). They take not one single penny from the general fund, but they have to go to the legislature to propose their budget and gain spending authority over their own money.

That is all to say that just because they have the money to go buy 640 acres of land to create a new WMA, doesn't mean the legislature will give them the spending authority to do so in the portion of their budget designated for land acquisition. Just because they have the money to drop 25 million on a habitat initiative, doesn't mean the legislature will let them. Just because the legislature might approve that habitat initiative, doesn't mean they will also approve the FTEs needed to deliver that iniaitive on the ground. This is how some of the political games get played.

But my point is that it's a lot more complex than just revenue/expenditure, and writing checks willy nilly for whatever the sportsmen want on any given year. The agencies themselves only have a certain degree of control over how much money sits in their "bank account" and how they can use it.

All true. I will say that as much as I opposed the loss of revenue via the general funding, the long term results have not been all that bad.

It's a lot more difficult for a State Legislature to deny funding for some of the things that you mentioned when none of that money is coming from the general fund. Also, since Sportsmen are the ones funding the GF 100% now here in Wyoming, if the Legislature gets too heavy handed they'll find themselves on the receiving end of a bunch of angry Resident hunters and fishermen. Residents who have the ability to send them to the unemployment line.

Its a tough one for me reconcile, I think every Citizen should help fund wildlife via the general fund, but that support comes with strings. Its a question of how much the strings will be pulled for the net gain in revenue. It may be easier to just cut a larger check as a Sportsman.

 

[Ben Lamb]

C'mon, man, it's Friday.

The impetus for CPW pursuing the Future Generations Act, which passed in 2018, was primarily to deal with a huge backlog of dam rehabilitation, fish hatchery renovation, capital construction, technology upgrades, etc. Of course in passage, the legislature added their own priorities for the agency as well, and required annual reporting on the progress being made on the identified goals. You can read those reports (under Annual Reports) here.

Clearly, the priorities I listed above require long-term planning and execution, so the agency is not going to spend down revenue earmarked for those projects annually.

*I'm not looking for another pissing match over the Future Generations Act. Thank you.

You're such a a badass you just pull it out of the air.

 

[Oak]

You're such a a badass you just pull it out of the air.

Better than where I usually pull it from…