BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 1786 (Mansoor) - Sport fishing: licenses
Amended: June 18, 2012 Policy Vote: NR&W 9-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: July 2, 2012 Consultant: Marie Liu
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 1786 would make sport fishing licenses valid
for a period of 12 consecutive months beginning on the date
specified on the license instead of the remaining of the
calendar year beginning in 2015.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time minimum costs of $150,000 from the Fish and Game
Preservation Fund (special fund) beginning in 2014-15 for
programming costs of the Automated Licensing Data System.
Unknown, but possibly in the millions to tens of millions
of dollars from the Fish and Game Preservation Fund (special
fund) beginning in 2015-16 in lost license fee revenues.
Background: Sport fishing licenses are generally required to
take fish, mollusks, crustaceans, invertebrates, amphibians or
reptiles in the state. Additional validations and report cards
are required for certain species and areas. Existing law
specifies that licenses are only valid for the calendar year for
which they are bought.
The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is currently in the
process of phasing out its current paper-based fishing and
hunting licensing system with an automated system called the
Automated License Data System (ALDS) that will make licenses
available for purchase at any time online or over the telephone
in addition to in-person purchases. ALDS implementation is
currently in the second of two phases of implementation which is
scheduled to be finished by early 2014. DFG is currently under a
contract with a vendor for ALDS programing that expires in 2013
with the option of two one-year extensions, which are likely to
be exercised. DFG anticipates that a new contract will be in
place beginning in 2015.
AB 1786 (Mansoor)
Page 1
Proposed Law: This bill would make sport fishing licenses valid
for a period of 12 months rather than the remaining of the
calendar year beginning in 2015.
Staff Comments: This bill would require DFG to make programming
changes to ALDS in 2014 in order to implement the bill's
provisions by 2015. As such, these changes would be required to
be done as an out-of-scope change under the existing contract.
According to DFG, the vendor estimates that changing sport
fishing licenses from calendar year licenses to 12-month
licenses will cost $150,000. The high costs are due to
significant portions of the ALDS system being based on calendar
year licenses. Thus, this bill would require significant amounts
of reprogramming. This bill has been previously amended to delay
implantation with the intent of having the reprogramming costs
to be incorporated into the new contract in 2015. However,
considering the significant reprograming needs reported by the
existing vendor, it is unclear whether the reprogramming costs
will be significantly less if they occur under a new contract.
Staff notes that if it is the author's intent for the
reprogramming to occur under the new contract, implementation of
this bill must be delayed for another six months to a year.
Staff notes that implementation of this bill is likely to be
complicated by the fact that validations, such as enhancement
stamps, will remain based on calendar year, as required by
statute. Thus, should this bill become law, the valid dates for
the base sport fishing license will likely not align with the
valid dates for the associated validations. Staff believes this
complication is likely to increase costs, at least for ALDS
programming; therefore DFG's programming costs of $150,000 is
likely a minimum cost.
This bill may also have an impact on sport fishing licenses fee
revenues. DFG is in the process of surveying other states'
experiences with shifting to a 12-month license. Of the four
states that have responded to DFG, three experienced an overall
decline in license sales. Virginia saw a 31% decline after three
years, Georgia saw 10% decline in its three-year license
average, and Alabama saw a small, but annual decrease over the
12 years which they offered a 12-month license. Alabama reverted
to a calendar year license after using 12-month licenses for
over a decade. Switching back to a calendar year license
coincided with a subsequent increase in license sales. One
AB 1786 (Mansoor)
Page 2
state, Utah has reported an increase in revenue but DFG has not
yet been able to quantify the increase. DFG acknowledges that it
is difficult to use these other states' experiences as a
predictor for the bill's ultimate impact on license sales partly
because the price differential between day-use and annual passes
greatly differs between states and some of the states, like
California, were experiencing some declines in license sales
before converting to a 12-month license. Staff notes as a
reference point that in the past six years, sport fishing
license revenues range in the low- to mid-40 million dollar
range, so that even a small decrease in license sales can result
in millions of dollars of lost revenues to the Fish and Game
Preservation Fund.
DFG believes that that this bill will have minor impacts to
enforcement costs.