BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1081 (Morrell) - Hunting and sport fishing: free and reduced
license fees: veterans
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: March 28, 2016 |Policy Vote: N.R. & W. 9 - 0 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: April 11, 2016 |Consultant: Mark McKenzie |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 1081 would require the Department of Fish and
Wildlife (DFW) to issue free or reduced-cost hunting and sport
fishing licenses, as well as other hunting and fishing tags,
validations, report cards, and other entitlements, to veterans
of the US Armed Forces, as specified.
Fiscal
Impact:
Estimated annual loss of approximately $3 million (Fish and
Game Preservation Fund) related to provisions that provide
free or reduced-cost hunting and sport fishing licenses to
honorably discharged veterans, disabled veterans, and
SB 1081 (Morrell) Page 1 of
?
recovering service members. (see staff comments)
Estimated annual revenue losses of approximately $500,000
(various special funds) related to provisions that provide
free or reduced-cost hunting and fishing tags, validations,
report cards, and other entitlements. (see staff comments)
DFW administrative costs of approximately $226,000 in first
year costs and approximately $385,000 in second year costs
(Fish and Game Preservation Fund) for additional staff time
necessary to verify veteran status. Ongoing costs are not
expected to be significant since veteran status verification
will only be necessary for the initial licensure period.
Background: Under current law, DFW is responsible for managing hunting and
sport fishing within the state. Current law requires DFW to
issue hunting licenses to take birds or mammals and a sport
fishing license to take fish, mollusks, crustaceans,
invertebrates, reptiles, or amphibians in the state. In many
cases, the license is the minimum level of certification a
hunter or angler needs to take an animal, but additional tags,
stamps, validations, and report cards are required for certain
big game, birds, and aquatic animal species from specified
areas.
Currently, annual hunting and sport fishing licenses each cost
$47.01 for California residents, and nonresidents pay a fee of
$163.65 for a hunting license and $126.36 for a sport fishing
license. Under existing law, reduced fees for sport fishing
licenses are provided to low income senior citizens, disabled
veterans and recovering service members, as specified. The cost
for a reduced-fee hunting or sport fishing license is currently
$6.95. In addition, free sport fishing licenses are provided to
low income Native Americans as well as to individuals who are
blind, developmentally disabled, or mobility impaired. Hunting
licenses are provided free-of-charge for specified mobility
impaired individuals.
Hunting tags are issued for big game animals, including bear,
elk, deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, and wild pigs. Tags are
also issued for bobcats. Since demand for big game hunting tags
exceeds the number of animals that can be killed sustainably
each year, most hunting tags are given out through a drawing.
Applying for an animal-specific tag drawing costs between $5.97
SB 1081 (Morrell) Page 2 of
?
and $38.62. The tags themselves cost between $22.42 and
$445.35. Furthermore, taking ducks and some upland game birds
requires a separate validation ($20.52 and $9.46, respectively).
In addition to a sport fishing license, CDFW requires a report
card for certain aquatic animals including abalone, sturgeon,
North Coast salmon, steelhead, and spiny lobster. Report cards
range from $6.22 to $22.42. Fishing with a second rod and
fishing in certain ocean waters require a validation ($14.61 and
$5.14, respectively).
Disabled veterans and recovering service members who qualify for
a reduced fee hunting or sport fishing license must pay the full
price of any tags, validations, report cards, and other
entitlements.
Current law requires DFW to annually adjust the fees it charges
for any license, tag, permit, stamp, and other entitlements by
specified inflation factors.
Proposed Law:
SB 1081 would require DFW to issue free or reduced-cost
hunting and sport fishing licenses, as well as other specified
entitlements, to veterans of the US Armed Forces. Specifically,
this bill would provide for the following:
For all resident and nonresident honorably discharged
veterans, this bill would:
o Establish a flat fee of $5.00 for a hunting or
sport fishing license, and specify that this fee is
not subject to annual inflationary adjustments in
current law.
o Reduce the fee by 50 percent for a hunting
tag, hunting tag drawing application, validation,
sport fishing report card, stamp or other entitlement
required in addition to a valid hunting or sport
fishing license.
For all resident and nonresident disabled veterans or
recovering service members, this bill would:
o Provide hunting and sport fishing license
free-of-charge.
o Provide free-of-charge a hunting tag, hunting
tag drawing application, validation, sport fishing
report card or other entitlement required in addition
SB 1081 (Morrell) Page 3 of
?
to a valid hunting license or sport fishing license.
In addition, this bill would prohibit DFW from raising the fees
on all other hunters or anglers in order to recover the cost of
the benefits provided pursuant to this bill.
Related
Legislation: AB 1844 (Gallagher), currently pending in the
Assembly Committee on Veterans Affairs, would require DFW to
reduce the fees for hunting and sport fishing licenses, lifetime
licenses, and any sport fishing report card, validation, or
other entitlement required in addition to a sport fishing
license, by 25% for California residents who are
honorably-discharged veterans. The bill would also require DFW
to reduce the fees for any sport fishing report card,
validation, or other entitlement required in addition to a sport
fishing license by 50% for disabled veterans, as specified.
Staff
Comments: The DFW reports that in 2015, California issued
approximately 14,174 disabled veteran sport fishing licenses,
which are issued on a calendar year basis. For hunting licenses,
which are issued on a fiscal year basis, DFW indicates that,
approximately 3,500 disabled veteran hunting licenses were
issued in 2014-15. DFW also indicates that fewer than 50
recovering service member licenses have been issued each year
since that program began in 2013. According to the Department
of Veteran Affairs, there are approximately 1.8 million veterans
living in California, with 331,645 receiving monthly disability
compensation as of 2014. Veterans currently represent
approximately 6.19 percent of California's adult population.
This bill would allow disabled veterans and recovering service
members to apply for hunting and fishing licenses, as well as
any associated tags, stamps, validations, report cards, and
other entitlements, free of charge. Currently this population
can acquire hunting and fishing licenses for a reduced fee of
$6.95, but applicants must still pay full price for any
associated tags, stamps, validations, report cards, and
entitlements. Based upon recent data on the number of hunting
and fishing licenses issued to disabled veterans, DFW
anticipates that provisions of the bill that provide enhanced
benefits to disabled veterans and recovering service members
would be approximately $288,000.
SB 1081 (Morrell) Page 4 of
?
SB 1081 would also reduce the fees that resident and nonresident
honorably-discharged veterans pay for hunting and fishing
licenses to a flat fee of $5, and reduce the fees for any
associated tags, stamps, validations, report cards, and other
entitlements by 50 percent. As noted in the background above,
residents currently pay $47.01 for annual hunting and sport
fishing licenses and nonresidents pay fees of $126.36 and
$163.65 for fishing and hunting licenses, respectively. Using
the assumption that the proportion of veterans in the adult
population is the same as the proportion of veterans who
purchase hunting and fishing licenses, DFW estimates that
reducing licensing fees to a flat rate of $5 would result in a
reduction of approximately $2.4 million in sport fishing license
and $497,000 in hunting license revenues. In addition, reducing
the fees for hunting and fishing tags, stamps, validations,
report cards, and other entitlements by 50 percent would result
in an estimated annual reductions of fishing related entitlement
revenues by approximately $178,000, and hunting related
entitlement revenues by approximately $167,000, respectively.
The actual fiscal impacts are not quantifiable, particularly
relative to provisions of the bill that provide new benefits to
honorably-discharged veterans, since directly-applicable data is
unavailable and behavior is difficult to predict. For instance,
the author and proponents are hopeful that the bill will
encourage more veterans, as well as their families and friends,
to participate in hunting and fishing, which would increase
sales of licenses and other entitlements, to the extent those
individuals are not currently hunting or fishing in California.
While increased sales may partially mitigate revenue losses,
they unlikely to fully offset fiscal impacts. With respect to
sport fishing licenses issued to honorably-discharged veterans,
for example, DFW would need to issue over 51,000 new full-fee
licenses to offset the anticipated $2.4 million in revenue
losses. The above estimates also cannot account for instances
in which veterans who may currently purchase short-term one- or
two-day resident or ten-day nonresident licenses (at a cost of
$15.12, $23.50, and $47.01, respectively) opt to purchase the
annual $5 license, which would exacerbate losses. In addition,
the conditions surrounding big game hunting tag demand and the
lottery system make those revenue impacts impossible to
quantify.
SB 1081 (Morrell) Page 5 of
?
SB 1081 prohibits the DFW from increasing the fees for hunting
and fishing licenses tags, validations, report cards, and other
entitlements sold to nonveterans to offset any revenue losses
resulting from the sales of free and discounted licenses and
entitlements to veterans. The bill also prohibits DFW from
adjusting the flat fees charged to veterans to account for
inflation. According to DFW, 17.1% percent of the department's
total budget comes from sales of sport fishing and hunting
licenses. Any reductions in Fish and Game Preservation Fund
revenues will put negative pressure on the department's
operating funds, and may create cost pressure to transfer funds
from other sources.
-- END --