BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
904 (Hollingsworth)
Hearing Date: 04/26/2010 Amended: 04/06/2010
Consultant: Brendan McCarthy Policy Vote: NR&W 9-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 904 eliminates the top tier fee for commercial
hunting clubs, reducing licensing fees for hunting clubs that
operate eleven or more properties from $2,000 per year to $1,000
per year.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
Reduced fee revenue from $10 to $20 per year Special
*
licensed hunting clubs
Potential reduced fee $125 to $250 per year Special
*
revenue from unlicensed
hunting clubs
Potential increase in fee Unknown Special
*
revenues from additional
compliance
* Fish and Game Preservation Fund.
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill may meet the criteria for referral to
the Suspense file.
Under current law, operators of commercial hunting clubs are
generally required to be licensed by the Department of Fish and
Game and pay an annual license fee. (Lands enrolled in
conservation programs and clubs where entrance fees are less
than $200 per person and total revenues are less than $2,000 per
year are exempt from licensing requirements.)
SB 1200 (Hollingsworth, Chapter 396, Statutes of 2006),
authorized commercial hunting club operators that use multiple
properties as a single hunting club to file a single
application. SB 1200 required licensees to pay a fee for each
property covered by their license. (At that time, the license
fee was $339.50 per year.)
AB 1423 (Tom Berryhill, Chapter 394, Statutes of 2009) revised
the licensee fee structure, by establishing a tiered fee
structure. The new fee structure requires operators to pay $200
for a single property, $500 for two to five properties, $1,000
for six to ten properties, and $2,000 for eleven or more
properties.
This bill eliminates the top tier license fee. Therefore,
operators of eleven or more properties would now pay $1,000 per
year, rather than the current fee of $2,000 per year.
Because the new tiered fee structure has not been in effect for
a full year, the department does not have data on the number of
licensed commercial hunting clubs that fall into each of the fee
tiers. The Department estimates that the number of licensed
clubs in the top tier (eleven or more properties) is likely
between 10 and 20 statewide.
By reducing the fee for these clubs, the bill will reduce fee
revenues from $10,000 to $20,000 per year.
In addition to the licensed commercial hunting clubs in the
state, there are a large number of hunting clubs that do not
comply with the state's licensing requirements. In 2009, there
were 73 licensed clubs, whereas the Department estimates that
there are as many as 1,000 commercial hunting clubs in the
state.
By reducing the top tier fee, this bill will also potentially
reduce fees paid by unlicensed commercial hunting clubs, should
the Department increase its enforcement efforts to improve
compliance with the law. The extent of this impact is very
uncertain, given that the total number of clubs is not known,
nor is the proportion of those unlicensed clubs that would be
subject to the top tier fee. Assuming that there are about 1,000
clubs in the state and that the top tier clubs make up 15
percent to 30 percent of the total number of clubs, potential
revenue losses could be between $125,000 and $250,000 per year.
However, the proposed reduction in fees could potentially
encourage some unlicensed club operators to apply for a license,
offsetting revenue losses. The extent of this offsetting revenue
impact is unknown.