Copyright 2000 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
March 19, 2000 Sunday 2D EDITION
SECTION: PERSPECTIVE; Pg. H-01
LENGTH: 2205 words
HEADLINE:
IN FOR A WILD RIDE DOW hunts for funds, fights for its survival
BYLINE: By Penelope Purdy,
BODY:
Colorado's wildlife agency is in serious
financial trouble and needs the Legislature's help. But few state
lawmakers are friends of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
To solve its monetary mess, political insiders say, the
wildlife agency likely will have to promise rural legislators to do
more control - that is, killing - of
predators, and undertake similarly controversial
programs.
How the politics sort out in the state Capitol in the
next few weeks could determine the fate of Colorado's wildlife
for years to come. If the Legislature refuses to act, then the
DOW simply won't have enough money to do its job. 'I really worry
about the future of that agency and the future of our wildlife,' said
Mike Smith, who chairs the wildlife committee for the Sierra Club's
Colorado chapter. 'The question isn't just where the money is coming
from, but how it's spent.'
Several proposals to fix DOW's financial mess
were introduced last week. None asks for general tax money. Instead,
all seek to give the agency more flexibility in raising money from
its existing cash sources. But each takes a different approach
to implementing three solutions.
One idea is to raise license
fees for out-of-state hunters. Currently, Colorado has the lowest
non-resident hunting fees in the West, charging just half of what
neighboring states do for elk tags, for example.
The second
idea is to give the Wildlife Commission, which oversees DOW, more
authority to set license fees. Because the Legislature micromanages
the wildlife agency, lawmakers must approve every license-fee
increase. But legislators have done so only four times in 65 years -
the last time was a decade ago - so inflation quickly erodes the
increases.
Yet the first two proposals will work only if the
Legislature adopts the third: remove the wildlife agency partially
or completely from the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR),
a constitutional amendment that limits annual increases in
state government spending. Without this move, any additional money
that DOW gets would have to be taken out of other state programs,
a prospect that is both counterproductive and politically
unpalatable.
Proponents argue that because DOW gets most of its money
from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses, with federal aid
and lottery proceeds filling in the gaps, it shouldn't fall
under TABOR but instead should operate as an enterprise fund.
If state politics this session play out as usual, the
wildlife measures will have to pass muster before the House and
Senate Agriculture Committees. And, historically, agricultural
interests have hammered DOW over livestock and crop losses to
wildlife and similar issues.
Political insiders thus expect
that in return for bailing DOW out of its financial fix, rural
lawmakers will insist that the agency undertake programs it has
resisted, such as aerial hunting of coyotes. And this year, DOW's
pain could make the agency unusually compliant with political
demands.
DOW's expenditures have exceeded revenues for two years,
and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, according
to its own calculations. Already, the agency has jettisoned
many long-term plans, and is eliminating all but emergency
capital construction projects and scaling back habitat programs,
education efforts and other spending. If this trend continues, DOW
might become unable to handle even its basic duties.
What got
DOW into hot water?
Demands on the agency have risen dramatically.
Whirling disease is wiping out trout populations, pushing DOW into
doing expensive research and remediation work. Chronic wasting
disease is killing deer and even some elk in north central Colorado,
and DOW is scrambling to find out what causes the illness and how
to stop it.
Simultaneously, the Legislature has said it
doesn't want federal authorities handling the reintroduction and
monitoring of threatened and endangered species in Colorado. The task
thus fell to the Colorado Division of Wildlife - but state lawmakers
didn't give the agency extra funds to run the program.
Meantime, many Coloradans want the wildlife agency to
expand its non-game species and watchable wildlife missions.
Those efforts, too, take resources, but there is no tax money
available for them.
Yet the real knock-out punch landed this
fall. DOW gets 72 percent of its $ 80 million annual budget from the
sale of hunting and fishing licenses.
For reasons that aren't
well understood, Colorado's mule deer population is declining. That
fact forced DOW to dramatically reduce the deer-hunting licenses it
sold this autumn. Revenue from deer-license sales plunged from $ 11.6
million in 1998 to $ 6.1 million in 1999. Because many deer hunters
then opted not to buy elk permits either, overall hunting-license
sales fell by about $ 9 million.
(Animal-rights activists
decry DOW's financial reliance on fishing and hunting, but haven't
come up with a politically realistic way to replace the license
revenues.)
The series of cutbacks has sent not just ripples, but
tidal waves across rural Colorado's economy. Each year, hunting
pumps about $ 750 million into the state's economy, fishing adds
another staggering $ 950 million, and watchable wildlife -
photography, bird watching, etc. - is worth an additional $ 1
billion. At nearly $ 3 billion a year, wildlife rivals the ski
industry in economic importance in Colorado. And paradoxically, most
of the benefits flow to small towns and rural communities.
Meantime, disputes erupted over DOW's other big
revenue sources: federal aid, which uses money from excise taxes
on certain sporting goods such as motor boats; and grants from
Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), the state program supported by
lottery dollars.
Critics long have contended that DOW doesn't
have the staff or resources to properly manage the wildlife areas and
other properties it has. But the federal government may make DOW
take over land that it gave to state parks years ago, a move that
could further strain the wildlife budget.
Colorado gets money
from two federal trust funds, and is supposed to use the cash only
for wildlife purposes. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says
that in the past 25 years, since Colorado split state parks from the
wildlife division, the state illegally has given wildlife lands to
the parks. And state parks, the feds say, hasn't managed the
properties primarily for wildlife. If the state
doesn't fix the problem by April 2002, the feds could yank the $ 11
million that the Division of Wildlife is supposed to get annually
from the trust funds.
'We hope it doesn't come to that,'' said Mary
Gessner, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's regional director for
federal aid. Federal officials just want to ensure that the state
agency is getting its proper share, she explained.
To resolve
the dispute, the state has undertaken a detailed audit to determine
which state parks were purchased with wildlife funds, and whether
state parks or other state lands could be given to DOW in exchange
for the existing parks.
While expensive, the effort isn't optional. 'If
we lose that federal funding, that's when the real financial problems
could hit,' said Dan McAuliffe, who is bird-dogging the audit for
the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
Ironically,
hunters and anglers - particularly those with young families or
elderly parents - are big users of the state park system, said
Director Laurie Matthews.
'When the ducks land on a lake, they don't
know who owns the deed,'' said Greg Walcher, director of the Colorado
Department of Natural Resources, which oversees DOW and the state
parks.
But many hunters and anglers were pleased that the
feds intervened. Sportmen long have worried that Colorado
is exacerbating its wildlife-management woes by diverting what
money is available to non-wildlife uses.
Simultaneously, DOW
and GOCO are debating whether lottery money can be used to support
the wildlife agency's day-to-day operations. The constitutional
amendment that created GOCO says lottery money can't be used to
substitute for existing funding sources. That clause was designed to
prevent the Legislature from using GOCO grants as an excuse to cut
back existing support for wildlife, parks and open space.
GOCO has helped DOW buy wildlife habitat, fund
watchable wildlife programs and reintroduce endangered species, said
GOCO's executive director, Will Shaffroth.
But when the
financial crunch hit, DOW asked GOCO for additional operating funds.
'Our board balked at that,' because it seemed to violate
the constitutional prohibition on substituting GOCO dollars for
other state money, Shaffroth said.
GOCO eventually gave DOW $
19.1 million, including $ 1.9 million to hire full-time staffers. But
the two state units fought over whether DOW should get another $ 1.3
million. The wildlife commission and GOCO's board will take up that
issue again on April 13. 'There are some significant issues that have
to be resolved,' Shaffroth said.
Looming over the debate
about wildlife funding is a fundamental question: whether the
Division of Wildlife will be a broad-based agency, caring for all the
wild critters in Colorado, or a traditional game-and-fish operation,
focused on only a handful of species.
In addition, Colorado -
which is increasingly urbanized - must decide how much influence its
farmers and ranchers should have in setting wildlife policy.
Already, four of the eight wildlife commission members
have agricultural backgrounds, the Sierra Club's Smith notes.
Another position on the commission is supposed to be
reserved for a member of a non-hunting organization, such as the
Audubon Society. Instead, Gov. Bill Owens appointed a member of
Ducks Unlimited, which represents primarily water fowl hunters,
Smith said.
Smith also noted that Walcher, another Owens'
political appointee, previously headed a Western Slope group called
Club 20, which is generally perceived as advocating development.
Smith and other environmentalists worry that Walcher is still
'wearing his Club 20 hat.'
'We've seen Gov. Owens move to the
political center on other issues, like guns and growth. But he has
not moved to the middle on wildlife issues,' Smith said.
Walcher responded that he is very concerned about wildlife
and that he has made fixing DOW's financial mess a priority.
'I am as strong a supporter of the Division of Wildlife
as there has ever been in that (DNR director's) office,'
Walcher said.
But environmentalists' vision of having DOW use
limited resources for non-game programs rankles some hunters and
anglers, because they believe that it is their money getting
diverted.
'When money was plentiful, sportsmen weren't upset
when license revenues paid for non-game programs such as
watchable wildlife,' said Jerry Hart, president of the United
Sportsmen's Council, a Colorado hunters' and anglers' organization.
But when dollars became scarce, sportsmen grew alarmed as
DOW gave short-shrift to game programs, such as protecting winter
deer habitat and eradicating whirling disease, Hart added.
The issues 'have become more and more polarized,' he lamented.
Other groups, such as the Colorado Wildlife Federation,
whose members are sportsmen and non-sportsmen, take a
middle-of-the-road position. Even among the sportsmen, there is broad
support for non-game programs, said Diane Gansauer, executive
director.
'In the current funding crisis, we can't pretend that
things can go full-tilt as they have in the past. Some things might
have to go, some tough choices have to be made,' said Gansauer.
With all its funding sources facing some threat,
DOW desperately needs legislative help.
'It has been a tough
year,' said commission member Rick Enstrom, who Owens appointed to
represent sportsmen's interests. The political potshots are so
intense that when he talks with lawmakers, 'I just about have to wear
Kevlar armor,' he added.
Historically, with Front Range legislators
focused on other issues, such as gun control and managing suburban
growth, wildlife concerns fell primarily into the hands of rural
interests, who often have clashed with DOW. But last week, a suburban
lawmaker, Rep. Joe Stengel, a Littleton Republican, stepped up to the
plate to sponsor several of the most important proposals that could
save the wildlife agency from financial collapse.
Walcher
hopes lawmakers will come up with a pragmatic, balanced plan to save
the agency. But he acknowledges that the issues haven't been well
publicized.
'Unfortunately, I don't think the public is well-focused
on these problems at all,' Walcher said. 'I hope the
legislative process becomes one way to talk about.'
GRAPHIC: GRAPHICS: The Denver Post art
Declining dollars
LOAD-DATE: March 17, 2000
