Big Sky money grab?

[birddog32]

Read in the Great Falls Tribune the Montana FWP needs more money and that there is talk of raising your resident senior citizen, youth, and veteran license fees for hunting and fishing.
Needing to find ways to tap nonresidents who come to Montana to view wildlife. WTH don't nr pay for motels and gas food etc?
With over 1000 nr licenses that went unsold last year due to NR draw and I-161 I would think that by allowing outfitters to have their license quota would have added over a million to your coffers. In addition, all those outfitters have to hire wranglers cooks guides etc to run their business, providing jobs for Montana residents.
Hope they get this figured out cause according to article FWP will be broke by 2015. Can anyone explain what is going on out there? Hope things work out for residents and us NR alike. Beautiful state and will continue to return as long as finances allow.

 

[Bambistew]

What point are you trying to make? Your post is complete jibberish.

Do you have a link to the article?

 

[BuzzH]

I can tell you whats going on in Montana...cheap assed residents.

$16 deer tags and $20 elk tags...thats whats going on.

I dont know the last time there was a tag increase for Residents...Fin will probably chime in on this one for sure.

 

[Lawnboy]

I dont know the last time there was a tag increase for Residents...Fin will probably chime in on this one for sure.

It's been a long time. We have the most liberal seasons and I believe the lowest tag fees for residents. Somethings going to have to give and I believe it's the residents who are needing to step up.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Actually, there are over $3 million worth of free and reduced cost licenses out there, and more are added each legislative session. I testified in support of a free antelope license for people with terminal illnesses this last session.

However, the loss of revenue is 30% of the overall cost needed to be made up. There was a great presentation on this at the FWP commission hearing, and I can forward the powerpoint presentation on to whomever sends me a pm requesting it. The presentation does a good job of describing what is a cyclic pattern that occurs every ten years or so.

Some of the things that FWP is considering are a resident license fee increase and possible budget cuts to them to the $10 million they will need. It's high time for a resident price increase to be sure.

A number of us are working on this already, and will hopefully be forming a stakeholder group of hunting orgs to look at all aspects so that we can make some informed decisions as to other funding possibilities for programs such as capitol construction and non-game species.

 

[drahthaar]

I was under the impression that all the NR tags sold, but there were many that were turned back?

 

[mdunc8]

I was under the impression that all the NR tags sold, but there were many that were turned back?

You're correct. The leftovers sold within a few days. I think some of the deer tags from the combo licenses were returned.

 

[Big Fin]

Yeah, FWP has stated they will ask the 2013 legislature for a fee increase that will go into effect n 2015. I think a lot of it will be resident fee increases.

And that always brings out the same cast of characters, whining and sniveling about what a terrible idea that is. It all culminates with the same politicians coming forth to whip on their favorite dead horse - FWP.

That almost makes it impossible to get even a slight fee increase, let alone a fee increase that would get us back to the inflation-adjusted fees we paid twenty or thirty years ago.

They kill the bill by calling it a tax. I can promise you that in the 2013 session, when this is introduced, many will vote against it because of some hokie "No new tax" pledge they signed. I will bet a rnew ifle if there is anyone dumb enough to take the bet against me.

We haven't had a resident fee increase since Moby Dick was a minnow. Given the uproar it always causes, you can see why. We should do what CO does - index it to an annual inflation adjustment and be done with the once-a-decade political battle.

In typical fashion, the first guy out of the blocks to protest is Gary Marbut, big cheese of an organization that he claims represents resident hunters and anglers in Montana. I would love to see their membership list. I suspect it would fit on a napkin.

I provide the most recent drivel that appeared as an Op-ed this week on some websites. Can't even begin to list all the missing facts that should be used to rebutt this article.

But, it demostrates just how pig-headed the welfare mindset can be for some Montana hunters. A vocal few want nothing more than to see FWP starve. I'm not always in support of everything FWP does, but they do more, with less money, than any western F&G agency.

If the polticians would stay out of the way, things would get a lot better, with less money.

Marbut talks about the wolf issue. Hmm, I didn't know FWP had control over wolves until April of 2011, so how where they to manage these predators? It was a Federal issue until we got delisting in April. He uses the terms "FWP's shocking tolerance and support for large predators."

I have been way too involved in that process, and I never once saw him at the meetings or on the phone calls that got us delisting. Maybe he was there, but he is pretty recognizable and always makes sure he gets his two cents in. I suspect he was like many in this wolf discussion; doing a lot of talking while not doing much to solve the problem. I could be wrong.

Wonder how many days these type of guys spent hunting wolves this year? Road hunting doesn't count. Maybe they have been at it hard. Too many guys want to moan about wolves, but now that we have a season, they are not doing anything about it. Not with wolves or any predators. They aren't out hunting/killing lions, black bears, or coyotes.

Almost like they expect FWP to go kill the predators. Last I checked, it was FWP's job to provide season for hunters to go kill the predators, something we can do almost year round in Montana.

Either get out and start hunting them, or quit whining. My opinion is that if you are not hunting lions, bears, wolves, coyotes, and doing it with vigor, your comments about predators fall into the whining and sniveling category.

I could go on and on about that waste of words in the Op-ed copied below. Like how their political friends, Debbie Barrett, et al, passed bills that stated we had to shoot the hell out of elk, even in the face of wolf predation, terrible winters, etc. 'Spose that hit the elk numbers hard?

What about I-161? That is what resulted in the undersell of tags he mentions, but he doesn't have any data to support if it was a revenue loser or revenue gainer for FWP. FWP had no say in I-161.

Every state has seen large drop offs in license sales since 2008. All attribute it to the economy. Only Colorado has seen a change and they went on an aggressive marketing campaign to offset it. Didn't know FWP was in charge of the overall economy.

The part about how a few years ago the editor of some hunting rag couldn't find a bull track in SW Montana makes me laugh. Makes me laugh hard.

Think about it. If that guy couldn't find an elk track, he needs help. He shouldn't even be issued a license. Hell, most anyone who has enough breath to fog a mirror could find a raghorn bull to shoot a few years back, especially if they were guided. Sounds like the guide or the editor need to be fired. Maybe both.

This type of editorial is further proof of how hard it is to pass a bill that would allow residents to pay a little more. A prime example of what passes for fact in the halls of the legislature in Helena. If intelligence was what kept the lights on in that Capitol building, we would be suffering from a major blackout.

We are the welfare capital of the west when it comes to sucking on the teat of non-residents. No other way to put it.

I better quit before I get serious about this.

FWP Flunks Econ 101; Looks for Bailout

by

Gary Marbut, president
Montana Shooting Sports Association


The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is reported to be running out of money because of decreased hunting license purchases, and is considering asking the Legislature for license fee increases. This is the first obvious symptom of something known as agency "death spiral" for FWP.

Over the past two decades, FWP has come to focus on wildlife and biology, when it should have been focused on fish and game. This includes FWP's shocking tolerance and support for large predators. FWP's total, willing, even eager cooperation with fostering excessive populations of large predator has long been predicted to end in a financial crash for the agency, as word unavoidably spreads that there is no game left to hunt so there is no reason to buy a license.

For too long, FWP leaders have leaned on the scales of public policy by making excuses for the devastation wrought upon game herds by large predators, by fudging game counts and census numbers, and by blaming any game population declines that could not be covered up on climate change, sunspots, lazy hunters, or aliens - anything but the truth. This coverup culture has been fostered by senior staff, always near retirement, who knew they'd be long gone from the hot seat when the FWP financial bus blundered off a cliff.

If the overall FWP attitude had not been so Hell-bent on "ecosystem management," "biological diversity," "natural balance" and other similar catchy but terminal "green" ideas destined to end hunting, FWP managers would have predicted the current agency financial crisis years ago. Nobody at FWP noticed or cared several years ago when the editor of the NRA's nationwide American Hunter magazine published a feature article about his fruitless elk hunting trip to southwest Montana, a trip where the only tracks he saw were wolf tracks. Nobody at FWP noticed or cared about the other hundreds of warnings from Montana citizens. Worse, those warnings were even ridiculed by FWP in mad pursuit of its own elite agenda.

The stock mantra from FWP managers has been: We're the professionals. We know best. The outcome that concerned citizens predict will never come to pass. The "evidence" of crashing game herds citizens offer is just "campfire stories" and is without merit because it doesn't come from paid FWP "professionals."

Yet when retired FWP employees, freed from the institutional FWP muzzle, tell that FWP-tolerated wolves are turning the Montana landscape into a "biological desert," FWP dismisses such comments summarily.

For the last two decades, FWP has been busy digging a hole for itself. As it sees daylight disappearing around the edges of the hole, it still won't quit digging.

Of course, the obvious solution for the bureaucratic-bound and reality-disconnected FWP will be to announce, "We've been managing wildlife for the general public (including the non-Montana public) for years. Now we need the general public to pay the bills." FWP has so fouled its nest by wasting the Montana hunting resource on predators and inadvisably removing hunters from the economic equation that it will now go to the Legislature asking for relief, including increased fees that hunters simply won't pay to access a vanishing resource, and, ultimately, asking for tax increases on the general taxpayer seeking a bailout from the results of its bad decisions.

You can bet that when FWP approaches the Legislature demanding an allowance increase as a reward for having flunked Econ 101, MSSA and thousands of Montana hunters will be there to say "Absolutely no way." FWP has not only ignored the many warnings from Montana hunters, it has mocked and disrespected them. Also ignoring a state law requiring it to control large predators to protect game herds, FWP has bulled its way down a path surrounded with warning signs.

What FWP needs is not more or alternate sources of money, but a total change in attitude and culture. Until that happens, let FWP starve! It is not serving Montana.



Gary Marbut, president
Montana Shooting Sports Association

 

[Ben Lamb]

Marbut was working with SFW, Toby Bridges and others to try and stop wolf management in MT both at the state house, and in Congress.

Marbut claims he wrote SB 414, and he showed up to try and undermine our plan, moving us more towards WY.

Plus, he spent a lot of time trying to get the silencer bill passed. It was one of the few times that MWF and the Stockgrowers were on the same side of an issue.

 

[birddog32]

What point are you trying to make? Your post is complete jibberish.

Do you have a link to the article?

Jan 22, Great Falls Tribune. The point I was trying to make was that IMO Montana should have never passed I-161 if they were hurting that much for cash. I think (but I may be wrong) licenses purchased thru an outfitter used to be like $1500 for NR. My NR combo went to $9something. Wouldn't it be better, (again my opinion) to guarantee those tags to the outfitters at the higher cost, and then sell them out?

When the article mentions tapping tourists who visit the state to view wildlife, I start to wonder.

 

[birddog32]

Thanks Fin, I got alot more information here in your post than I have anywhere else. When a NR pays $900-$1500 and R pays under $50 something is wrong. IMO. Thanks for clearing things up for me Fin and MRr Lamb.

 

[shoots-straight]

Jan 22, Great Falls Tribune. The point I was trying to make was that IMO Montana should have never passed I-161 if they were hurting that much for cash. I think (but I may be wrong) licenses purchased thru an outfitter used to be like $1500 for NR. My NR combo went to $9something. Wouldn't it be better, (again my opinion) to guarantee those tags to the outfitters at the higher cost, and then sell them out?

When the article mentions tapping tourists who visit the state to view wildlife, I start to wonder.

Maybe you should know your facts before you post foolishness:

Old system:
Outfitter sponsored: 5500 X $1200 = $6,600,000
General NR combo 11500 x $628= $7,222,000
Nr Deer combo: 4300 x $328= $1,410,400
Outfitter sponsored deer: 2300 x $600=$1,380,000
total old system: $ 16,612,400
New system with the 800 elk tags turn back:

elk combo tags sold 16200 x $897= $14,531,400
Deer combo tags sold 6600 x $527 = $ 3,478,200
Then, of the elk combo's those turned in 800 didn't return the deer tag: 800 x $527 = $421,600

Total new system: $ 18,431,200
That means the MTDFW&P's made a minimum of $1,818,800 more on I-161.

Those that turned in the elk tags also only received 80% of that tags price. I didn't figure that in.

Fiscal note: http://fwpiis.mt.gov/content/getItem.aspx?id=46302

 

[sweetnectar]

I haven't noticed an article but someone mentioned it to me the other day. Does anyone know how short FWP is this year or next, if its reoccurring, etc.? How much money are they asking for and what percent increase overall is this?
As far as a government agency that hunt talkers derive a greater portion of benefit from, FWP would be high on the list. I for one wouldn't mind seeing some money taken from education and given to FWP but messing with education usually is political suicide. One thing is for sure I don't like seeing government as a whole grow but don't mind if we take away from one government agency and give it to another.

 

[jerrym]

Here is an article about it that appeared in Ravalli Republic-

BILLINGS - Montana hunters and anglers, including senior citizens and youngsters who now receive licenses at a discount, could pay higher fees in the future as officials discuss ways to increase funding for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Revenues for the department have declined steadily over the past two years due to a "perfect storm" of events.

Those events include a national economic downturn, a severe winter that reduced the number of licenses for sale in much of Eastern Montana, high water in the spring that cut the number of fishing licenses sold, high fuel costs, the perception of a statewide decline in game numbers from wolf depredation, high unemployment and a decrease in the number of nonresident license sales.

Perhaps most important, there are fewer hunters and anglers buying licenses in Montana and nationally.

The decline has averaged around $2 million a year for the past two years and the loss is projected to continue into 2012, according to Sue Daly, the department's finance division administrator, who broached the subject with the FWP Commission at its monthly meeting Thursday in Helena.

"We're now at the point where we need to deal with this," Daly said.

Residents last saw license fee increases in 2005. Nonresident fees were raised in 2001, except for hunters who saw an increase after passage of Initiative 161 in 2011. Nonresident fees pay for about two-thirds of FWP's $35 million in annual operating costs; the rest comes from resident licenses. Another $11 million in license sales is earmarked for specific funds.

"We need to make a substantial move to equalize that (nonresident vs. resident) equation," Commissioner Ron Moody said. "I'm just putting the cards on the table."

Daly said that by 2015, the department's savings account will be drained, but that's no surprise. The department has slowed the expected decline by a couple of years with conservative fiscal management including more video conferencing and using fewer three-quarter-ton pickup trucks that gulp fuel.

In all, the department will have to come up with a projected $10 million a year in savings and revenue increases.

The reason for bringing up the issue now is that legislation will be crafted this spring to present to the 2013 Legislature. If fee increases are proposed and eventually passed, they won't show up in FWP's coffers until 2015.

One possible revenue increase is easy to find. Daly noted that the state gives away about $3 million worth of licenses a year through discounts to senior citizens, youths, former Montana residents and veterans. Although they are all worthy causes, there is an expense involved, she said.

Bob Gilbert, executive director of Walleyes Unlimited, told the commissioners that as a senior citizen, he'd be willing to pay more.

"There's something really wrong with this picture," he said. "It's nice to be generous, but you can't give away money you don't have."

Gilbert said he's also concerned that sportsmen's money is going to manage predators like grizzly bears and wolves - programs that don't pay for themselves.

"The bison plan - who the hell is paying for that?" he asked.

Ben Lamb, of the Montana Wildlife Federation, suggested the state consider ways to tap others, besides hunters and anglers, to fund the state's wildlife programs.

"You need to involve everyone who has a stake in this: the natural resources community as well as ranchers and landowners," he said.

Commissioner Moody agreed, adding that some way to tap tourists visiting the state to view wildlife would be helpful.

"None of those folks pay a cent to fund the wildlife, unless they buy a hunting or fishing license," Moody said. "We need to confront that."

 

[Ben Lamb]

As you can see by this fancy chart, FWP is solvent through FY 2014.

 

[DHaffner]

Wow, I paid $150 per buck tag, one east river and one west river to hunt as a resident in South Dakota last year. There is so much demand for the east river tag it is an every other year draw, you can't get it two years in a row. With a $20 elk tag, as soon as I draw my Black Hills resident elk tags I'll be moving to Wyoming or Montana!

 

[exponentialpi]

Various Montana newspapers carried this article last week. Here

Also, this article ran the same day. Didn't seem to be the best timing for FWP in my mind.

 

[birddog32]

Sorry guys, didn't mean to open a can of worms and I will be the first to admit I'm wrong about my "facts". At least want to say thankyou to those that replied. As a NR at least from this post I have a better understanding of what is going on. Spose it shouldn't concern me as a NR, but still think that youth, being the next generation of hunttalkers, should be provided low cost opportunties to learn to hunt and fish. If I were a resident I would be very concerned about the situation. Thanks for your time.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Having enjoyed five decades hunting Montana, I think increases in fees are appropriate and necessary.
I feel residents should be willing to pay somewhat more than what we contribute now.

My grand nephew completed Hunter's Safety two years ago and was given free license and deer tag, along with a vest and some other goodies. When he came to hunt with me during the first two-day youth hunt I was very impressed with what he had learned and how he handled himself in the field.
'Don't know if the free items are just part of the Great Falls Hunter's Safety program or if it's more widely done, but I would gladly support that type of free stuff for young hunters.

I share the same negative perspective regarding Gary Marburt and Montana Shooting Sports. As a lifelong gun owner and gun rights advocate, I shuddered at the legislative proposals introduced by Marburt and Montana SS last session. They were the kind of ideas that put firearms opponents on the offense and do more to threaten gun rights than to protect them. Furthermore, as you can see from the article by Marburt, he really offers little in the way of constructive ideas for supporting FWP and sportsmen. It's more about criticism and trying to make a name for himself, in my opinion.

 

[sweetnectar]

So if I'm reading the fancy chart correctly everything that is showing before 2014 is surplus and everything on the projected course after 2014 is deficit? I wonder if the projected course include the past land purchases by FWP and project them to be repeated into the future or is the projection showing the percent increase of land purchases and projecting that same increase into the future or the same for studies, or none or what does it consisit of? I bet the legislature will go over this with a fine tooth comb.