I am a current member of the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources board and a former member of the VA House of Delegates for 14 years, representing the former 60th District, which included Halifax, Charlotte, Prince Edward and part of Campbell counties. I only illuminate my past experience in the House for credibility in that I at least know how the process works … or is supposed to work.
Against my strong and vocal opposition, at a meeting of the DWR board this past Thursday, the board voted 6-4 to increase the fees to hunt, fish and boat beginning Oct 1. I write this editorial not to criticize my colleagues who voted for this increase but to give the public a better understanding of how I think we got here and why I so vehemently objected.
But before I get to that, I think it best to give a little understanding of how VA DWR is funded. Unlike most state agencies, VA DWR does not receive any state budgeted monies and gets its funding primarily through the sale of licenses, grants and various fees collected, including boating registration fees. As part of the license sales, the federal government, through the Pittman-Robertson Act (PR for short), sends VA a portion of the federal excise taxes collected through the sale of hunting, fishing and other outdoor gear back to each state based on the number of licenses SOLD in each state. I emphasize sold because anyone exempt from purchasing a license is not counted in the federal funds returned to the state.
The latter point made here is my first of three objections to a license fee increase. The VA legislature has, over the years and for good reasons, exempted many different categories of people from having to obtain a license. Landowners and their families and certain veterans, to name a few… All of which I agree with. However, with every exemption to obtaining a license, DWR loses its share of PR money because there is no license sale generated. It is estimated that VA is losing $15-20 million a year in revenue through PR money that is ALREADY PAID BY VIRGINIA SPORTSMEN AND WOMEN AND GOING TO OTHER STATES! That is almost one-third of our entire DWR annual budget! So essentially, we are leaving that money “on the table.” The fix is a simple one: Require exempt sportsmen to acquire their annual licenses, check a “license exempt” option along with the justification, and require the state to cover at a rate of $3 per exempt license (the minimum the Feds will allow to be counted as a paid license) for each exempt license generated. This will accomplish two things: 1) It will capture all of our share of PR money while remaining free to those who qualify for the exemption, and 2) It will allow DWR to actually know how many people are hunting and fishing in VA, a number we currently have no idea of. The justification is that if the legislature is going to offer exemptions, it should at least cover DWR’s cost due to lost revenue. As I have explained this idea to legislators and others in state government, they all tend to agree and support but that is at least one year away from being considered.
My second objection is the “heck with it factor.” There will be a percentage of people who will either quit hunting altogether or just not buy a license at all and take their chances. DWR projects that number to be 3%, but I believe it may be much higher (maybe 5-10%), and these are people who have been buying their licenses in the past but will stop.
My third objection is that the hard-working Virginians who hunt, fish and boat are the ones paying the bills, and we continue to go to them for more. DWR is a big agency, protecting the resources entrusted to it (game and non-game alike), and yet the hunters and fishermen pay the bills for nearly everything. If fees were going to be adjusted, adjust them on every fee, not just sportsmen licenses.
To me, raising these license fees to generate more revenue when there is more than enough federal money just sitting there for us to use and already collected is a travesty. Just because we “haven’t raised the fees since 2012” is no reason to do it now! It is not the hunter, fisherman or boater’s fault that DWR hasn’t figured out a way to get our own money or streamline our agency, and they should not be paying for our lack of effort to do better. We are essentially asking the sportsmen and women to pay more money for fewer services, and that is NOT how we should be trying to attract more people outdoors.
James Edmunds is a former state legislator from Halifax County who now sits on the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources Board.
