BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 583 (Berryhill) - Sport fishing: licenses.
Amended: April 25, 2013 Policy Vote: NR&W 9-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: January 23, 2014 Consultant:
Marie Liu
Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 583 would require the Department of Fish and
Wildlife (DRW), in a five year pilot program, to issue a sport
fishing license that would be valid 12-months from a date
specified on the license.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time minimum costs of $150,000 from the Fish and Game
Preservation Fund (special fund), likely in FY 2014-15, for
programming costs of the Automated Licensing Data System.
Potential fee revenues of approximately $150,000 to the
Fish and Game Preservation Fund, likely beginning in FY
2015-16, to reimburse DFW's administrative costs.
Ongoing costs, likely in the range of $8 to $9 million,
from the Fish and Game Preservation Fund beginning in FY
2015-16 in lost license fee revenues.
Ongoing costs, likely in the range of $2.7 to $4.5 million,
from the federal Sport Fish Restoration Act funds because of
anticipated reductions in license sales.
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.
DFW 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
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implementation which is scheduled to be finished by early 2014.
Proposed Law: This bill would require DFW to issue a sport
fishing license that is valid for 12 months from a date
specified on the license. This 12-month license would be the
same price as a calendar license plus an administrative and
implementation fee to recover all costs to DFW to issue the
license. DFW would not be able to issue the 12-month license
until ALDS has been modified to issue and track these licenses.
The ability to purchase a 12-month license would expire five
years after the date which DFW issues the first 12-month
license.
Related Legislation: AB 1875 (Mansoor) 2011 would have required
that all sport fishing licenses be valid for 12-months from the
date of purchase beginning in 2015. This bill was held on
suspense by this committee and later amended to address another
subject.
Staff Comments: This bill would require DFW to make significant
programming changes to ALDS in order to offer a second type of
sport fishing license at an estimated cost of $150,000. While
this bill would require that a fee be added to the 12-month
license to recover the administrative costs of issuing the
12-month license, the ALDS programing costs would occur before
any fee revenues would be available to offset the costs. DFW
estimates that around 580,000 of the approximately 1 million
licenses sold annually would choose to purchase a 12-month
license. If this estimate is correct, the administrative fee
would be about 25 cents per license for one year.
Staff notes that while this bill would allow for the sale of
12-month fishing licenses, any 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. The lack of
alignment between the license and enhancement stamps is likely
to cause consumer confusion. In 2012, slightly more than half of
the fishing licenses sold, or about 580,000 licenses, were
bought without any additional enhancement stamps.
This bill may also have an impact on sport fishing licenses fee
revenues by reducing the number of licenses sold. DFW has
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surveyed other states that have shifted to a 12-month license.
Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama all saw a decline in revenue and
sales by 9 to 31% subsequent to changing their licensing terms.
Texas also saw a reduction in annual license sales, but as
license fees were increased, there were no lost revenues.
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.
Based on other state's experience, DFW estimates a 20% reduction
in sports fishing licenses. Given that sport fishing license
revenues have ranged in the low- to mid-40 million dollar range
in the past three years, such a reduction would result in $8 to
$9 million in lost revenues.
DFW notes that the state receives federal grant funds as part of
the Sport Fish Restoration Program. The amount the state
receives is based on land area and the number of licensed
anglers. Should this bill decrease the number of licenses sold,
it would correspondingly decrease the amount of federal grant
funds received by the state. Currently California receives the
maximum state apportionment of the funding of 5% or
approximately $18 million. DFW estimates that a 20% reduction in
fishing licenses sold could result in a loss of $2.7 million to
$4.5 million in federal Sport Fish Restoration Act funding.
DFW believes that that this bill will have minor impacts to
enforcement costs.