BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 1166 (Berryhill) - Department of Fish and Game: Big Game
Management Account funds.
Amended: May 1, 2012 Policy Vote: NR&W 9-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 14, 2012 Consultant: Marie Liu
This bill may meet the criteria for referral to the Suspense
File.
Bill Summary: SB 1166 would allow a nonprofit, who is designed
by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) to auction deer or big
horn sheep tags, to retain up to 10% of the tag cost to cover
their administrative costs of holding the auction. This bill
would also require that the funds in the Big Game Management
Account be primarily used for programs that benefit big game,
and secondarily used for administrative and enforcement costs of
such programs.
Fiscal Impact:
Ongoing costs of $35,000 to $45,000 to the Big Game
Management Account (special fund) beginning in 2013-14 for
the loss of auction proceeds.
Ongoing unknown costs to the Fish and Game Preservation
Fund beginning in 2013 for the use of the Big Game
Management Account for administrative costs.
Ongoing costs of less than $50,000 to the Big Game
Management Account for accounting requirements.
Background: Existing law allows DFG to authorize the sale of 10
deer tags and up to 3 bighorn sheep tags annually for the
purpose of raising funds for programs and projects related to
big game species. Revenues are deposited into the Big Game
Management Account. Except for these tags, which are generally
auctioned by nonprofits, deer and sheep tags are distributed by
lottery for a set fee.
In the past, there were separate accounts for antelope, elk,
deer, wild pig, bear, and bighorn sheep within the Fish and Game
Preservation Fund. SB 1058 (Harman) Chapter 408/2010
consolidated these separate accounts into a single Big Game
Management Account and required that the monies only be spent on
SB 1166 (Berryhill)
Page 1
projects that benefited those species.
Proposed Law: This bill has three main provisions: (1) allow
nonprofits, which are auctioning deer and sheep tags on behalf
of DFG, to retain up to 10% of the auction proceeds to cover
their administrative costs to hold the auction; (2) require DFG
to account for spending for each of these species separately;
and (3) require that the Big Game Management Account be
primarily spent on projects and secondarily used for
administrative and enforcement costs.
Staff Comments: According to DFG, the auction of deer and sheep
tags by nonprofits results in $350,000 to $450,000 in annual
revenues. This bill's provision that would allow nonprofits to
keep up to 10% of the proceeds to cover the nonprofit's
administrative costs is thus expected to result in
$35,000-45,000 in lost revenue to the Fish and Game Preservation
Fund.
This bill's provisions regarding accounting requirements and
spending priorities of the Big Game Management Account are in
response to ongoing concerns that DFG is using dedicated funds
for excessively high administrative costs and past concerns that
revenues from specific tags are being used for unrelated
conservation work. DFG's standard administrative overhead is
currently 25%.
The Legislature has heard in the past from numerous hunting,
sport fishing, and commercial fishing groups that DFG's
administrative costs are unreasonably high and multiple bills
have attempted to limit DFG's overhead rate for specific
accounts. While these groups' frustration with the overhead rate
is understandable, the rate is set by the Department of Finance
based on the actual cost of operations. DFG is significantly
underfunded for its statutory responsibilities. If DFG is
limited from recovering the appropriate amount of administrative
costs from each account, this cost is shifted to the
overburdened non-dedicated account of the Fish and Game
Preservation Fund at the expense of other programs. While this
bill does not put a firm cap on the DFG's administrative costs
to the Big Game Management Account, the bill designates
administrative and enforcement costs as a "secondary purpose."
It is unclear what the impact of this language is, if any.
SB 1166 (Berryhill)
Page 2
Staff notes that one of the benefits of consolidating the
antelope, elk, deer, wild pig, bear, and bighorn sheep accounts
into the Big Game Management Account was reduced administrative
costs due to reduced accounting needs. Re-establishing some of
the separate accounting, albeit not for actual separate
accounts, reinstates some of the administrative costs, which are
likely less than $50,000.