Senate Bill 58- Doubling the Maximum Cap for Block Management

[Mtn-time]

What are the fiscal ramifications of this bill? Is it going to require additional revenue, or can the program absorb any additional costs. How exactly would these funds be used? I'm skeptical about it. Will 500 additional "quality hunts" be generated at the expense of issuing 5,000 additional OS licenses to pay for it? At the end of the season we took tow steps backwards in "quality hunts". On the other hand those additional OS hunters do grow the budget and contribute some to the local economies. I'll have to tune in and hear what the sponsor has to say.

 

[MThuntingnative]

Anything that helps the program and the landowners is a good thing. My kids and I hunt a lot of BM(mostly for birds) and just like public there are some good areas and some areas that are not that great. But it sure is nice to have them.

 

[Ben Lamb]

SB 58 was signed into law today. Huge kudos to Marcus Strange from MWF who shepherded this bill through the process and all of the Elk Coalition partners who worked to get it over the hump and passed.

This bill had it's origin in the Mint Bar in Martinsdale Montana in February of 2022 when Elk Coalition members sat down with some elected officials and ranchers and had a long talk over burgers and beers about what we could do together to improve hunter'/landowner relations & increase access to private land. During that discussion, there was a lot of talk about "what makes sense from a financial point of view." We settled on $50,000. That's the average price of a large lease, it's a significant line item in the ranch's budget and it helps show that Montanans are willing to put some skin in the game in terms of getting access in an incentive based fashion.

PLPW will be looking at Block Management over the next interim in the hopes of making some changes. It's imperative to keep the advocacy up to get the changes needed to help improve the program.