Resident License Fee Bill becomes law 2005

Resident License Fee Bill

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Updated 4/18/05

Congratulations to all of you that supported HB05-1266. The House concurred with the Senate version and the bill is on its way to the Governor for his signature.

This is a bill for bi-partisan support, a bill that benefits every Colorado citizen. As a banker you might factor in my perspectives on restoring DOW's fiscal reserves (see attachment), and why DOW with low and declining fiscal reserves is absolutely bad news for wildlife management. Also factor in that that with this bill's passage, there will be no huge spending spree, as the Joint Budget Committee approves DOW's budgets, in theory DOW not being able to spend what they are not allowed to spend.

Chronic Wasting Disease, its tentacles moving slowly across Colorado (not to mention New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Illinois, and Wisconsin) is 100% unsolved. In the past month Colorado hears more bad news about a CWD positive test on deer coming from Colorado Springs, plus a CWF positive test from a captive elk at Ron Walker's Elk Ranch near Penrose, CO.

Realize that fishermen, hunters, and other wildlife enthusiasts contribute .5 billion in economics to Colorado, and generate 30,000 jobs. Why even think of playing 'Russian Roulette' in wildlife management. Wildlife dollars touch every single community in Colorado, literally making thousands of businesses years all the way from Yuma to Gateway, Eads to Silt, Rangely to Cortez, Meeker to Sterling, and La Junta to Paonia. I know, I've been to all those towns and more, and each year I join hundreds of thousands of other sportsmen that buy a license to hunt, fish, and observe wildlife in Colorado. We pay the tab for managing wildlife, and do so smiling, and these are among the first dollars budgeted in our households.

The truth is responsible sportsmen will gladly bear the proposed increases in license costs, plus celebrate that Colorado learned from other states in setting forth a Habitat Stamp. Hunting, fishing, and accessing state wildlife areas will continue to be a bargain with passage of HB-1266. I'll pay more to gas up that I will to buy my elk tag, plus the new fishing reel I bought is close to 20 times the cost of the new Habitat Stamp. Surveys of Coloradoan disclose over 50% of all Colorado citizens see wildlife as one of the defining qualities in living in the great state of Colorado.

DOW does I believe manage its budget well, and live with politics in wildlife. Indeed it seems every one has some bone to pick with DOW, an Enterprise agency amazingly well balanced in perspective and directions. DOW though has no crystal ball to predict wildlife diseases, nor any endless well of fiscal reserves to cash flow out of such diseases, population sprawl, and climate changes aka droughts which drain eastern plains lakes and take down river levels. The reality is faced with wildlife diseases you spend money you didn't even think of spending. Here DOW has spent over million in dealing with Whirling Disease (trout disease impacting native Rainbow Trout stocks), as well as Chronic Wasting Disease impacting our entire stock of free ranging deer and elk animals. Now this month is more bad news about Mud Snails imperiling trout and invertebrate life in Boulder Creek. What will be the next challenge to Colorado's wildlife? I don't know, I simply think history will repeat itself, and DOW will face new challenges to our Colorado wildlife.

Now about who we are behind this bill. Thousands of folks have come into and have had input into the format of HB-1266. In the lead are literally a 'Who's Who' of conservation/environmental organizations both in Colorado and the U.S. I personally belong to Trout Unlimited, Mule Deer Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Colorado Wildlife Federation, and I and the others behind these conservation organizations do represent the average sportsmen. We literally bleed for the wildlife we cherish, and we would never in any way take a stand or support actions which would adversely impact gun ownership, hunting and fishing heritage, wildlife management, wildlife law enforcement, or wildlife habitat.

This is a responsible bill that will benefit every Colorado citizen. We ask for your continued support.  My attachment is below.

Kent Ingram
Vice President and Board Member, Colorado Wildlife Federation

COLORADO DIVISION OF WILDLIFE FUNDING/FINANCES 

The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) is the state agency entrusted with managing, protecting, and enhancing wildlife resources.  DOW is overseen and managed by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR).    

DOW finances rely on hunting and fishing licenses that sportsmen procure to have the opportunity to hunt and fish in Colorado.   Recent data has 83% of total hunting revenue coming from non-residents, and 68% in combined fishing / hunting license revenue.   Suffice it be concluded that non-residents money spent hunting big game in Colorado is very important to wildlife management.          

DOW, while a state agency, has no funding from Colorado tax based revenues.  DOW is afforded "Enterprise" status, exempt from the Tabor Amendment, and its limits of state budget spending.  DOW budgets and expenditures are though controlled by the Joint Budget Committee (JBC), which approves the DOW budgets.   Thusly JBC is very much a controlling force over DOW finances, because in theory one cannot spend what one is not approved to spend.     

                                   DOW Revenues (millions) 

Year Licenses (Net) Federal GOCO, grants Interest Other Total
1999 61.9 12.8 4.4 4.6 1.6 85.5
2000 55.0 13.1 11.3 4.7 3.6 87.8
2001 54.8 12.9 11.6 4.4 1.7 85.3
2002 58.8 11.6 9.5 4.2 3.1 87.1
2003 (e) 62.3 13.8 10.4 4.1 1.6 92.2
2004 (e) 63.5 16.8 17.1 4.0 1.6 103.0
2005 63.7 16.1 16.3 3.8 1.6 101.5

Revenues represent in come coming in the front door.  DOW budgets with approved expenditures and projected revenues.   Deficits can occur when revenues are lower than expected, or expenditures are higher than anticipated.  DOW deficits appear to com e from lower than projected revenues since the agency has historically under spent approved levels of expenditures.   The result has been deficits.  The cushion DOW relies on to cushion budgets is the DOW Fund Balance, essentially the endowment or a savings account of wildlife management that reduces as deficits occur.  Expenditures themselves are not totally predictable, evidenced by a series of wildlife diseases and viruses that have cost tens of millions of dollars for DOW in recent years.  These have included Whirling Disease where DOW has spent over million in capital expenditures to make its fish hatcheries clear of Whirling Disease.    Another huge block of cash spent has been fighting Chronic Wasting Disease, essentially costing DOW million a year, this disease still largely unknown, unsolved, and expanding recently to Fort Carson.   Now add in new bad boys on the block West Nile Virus and invasive Mud Snails now found in Boulder Creek. 

Deficits, even with tight fiscal controls of DOW, have evolved to be the norm, requiring periodic infusions of cash (license fee hikes) to build back reserves.  Reserves to DOW are anything but a luxury, as DOW without adequate reserves could bode for a future bankruptcy in wildlife management.  Sportsmen's willingness to absorb license fee increases every so many years comes to represent that cash infusion of  reserves.   The chart below shows the trend of in com e, expenses, and deficits for DOW in recent years:

Year Revenues Expenditures Surplus/(Deficit)
1999 .3 .5 (.3)
2000 .8 .7 ($.9)
2001 .3 .7 (.4)
2002 .1 .6 ($.5)
2003 .2 .9 (.7)
2004 3.0 6.8 (.9)

Combined deficits (losses) for DOW over the past 6 years total .7 million, and have reduced DOW's Fund Balance (reserves) from .4 million to .9 million.  .9 million sounds like a lot of money to cushion DOW finances, until one subtracts out allocated capital expenditures (budgeted land acquisitions, lease procurements, DOW property maintenance/improvements).  Today in 2004 the scenario is as follows:

Gross Fund Balance (Reserve)

 .9 million  

Less Budget Committed Capital Expenditures for Future Years    

-.9 million

Un-obligated Fund Balance (Reserve)

 .0 million 

Based on the past 6 years deficits of DOW, this million reserve could be fully wiped out by 2011.   That would not  be allowed to happen, though, because DOW would then reduce / cancel capital expenditures so vitally needed for wildlife and sportsmen.  The scenario then would be fewer or no wildlife property purchases, lease cancellations,  DOW property maintenance being eliminated.  Colorado sportsmen talk the talk about wanting more access for hunting and fishing, yet folks it simply won't happen if DOW is cannot operate both operating and capital expenditure budgets backed by ample reserves.   Sportsmen stand to lose the most if reserves are low, and the impacts would be negative statewide for fishing and hunting opportunity, not to mention wildlife management.   

 SUMMARY:

DOW is a self funded agency majority funded by sportsmen.  The scenario has been to raise license costs seldom (about every 10-13 years) then that bump in in com e cushion deficits in later years.   A cost of living index built in system wide, like is the case for non-resident big game licenses, would appear to help DOW avoid deficits, and be more easily absorbed increasing slowly by sportsmen's budgets.  As previously stated, Fund Balance absorbs DOW losses.   In the last 6 years DOW reserves have declined by almost million, and hunters for the future are declining in numbers of the population.   Studies show hunters are as low as 8-10% of the U.S. population, and demographics portray many of those sportsmen age 50 and up.   Today, like almost a century ago, sportsmen fund wildlife management almost exclusively.    

Colorado to this sportsman needs more arrows in its quiver for addressing wildlife problems. Wildlife diseases are costing us millions, drought impacts of lower water flows and levels are impacting wildlife and fisheries habitat, and  public/wildlife issues multiply as Colorado reaches out to possibly double its populations in our lifetimes.    Non-resident big game hunters already absorbed a healthy hunting license increase in 2001-2002, and residents have not had any license increase for about 12 years.   Colorado resident big game licenses are now among the lowest cost in the western U.S. So it is, residents have a bargain and still com plain.  Moreover, it appears to me so often that a purchased hunting or fishing license creates an expert in wildlife management, and everyone seems to have some bone to pick with DOW.

If one can rise above the fray, and the minor bickering, I see a freight train emerging towards DOW and wildlife management.   That fright train is erosion of monetary reserves that DOW.    My perspective is that every sportsman has to answer the question of what DOW does if it has no or insufficient reserves, then has to cut back or cancel lease procurements, signage and maintenance of wildlife areas, forgo buying new wildlife areas, funding essential  conservation easements, or supplemental fish stocking.  I for one hope I never see that day.  The increase, impacting mainly residents hunting and fishing licenses, even with a Habitat Stamp will likely generate less than million.   Those funds however will be new blood into rebuilding  DOW reserves.   I equate DOW to getting a good meal once about every 10-12 years, then going on a 10 year diet.  It doesn't make for optimal fiscal health.  In my career I read numbers and analyze finances of  businesses, plus I hunt and fish,  As I see it there is a need for more money for the Colorado Division of Wildlife if it is to adequately fund its long term goals and objectives.   I hope you feel that way too, because money is the lifeblood of wildlife management, and public hunting and fishing.   Every sportsman has a greater cause than just buying a license to hunt and fish, and that cause is helping to insure our grandkids and their grandkids have a healthy wildlife resource, and that today requires an infusion of sportsmen money into wildlife management.  Support the many other Colorado sportsmen organizations in working to help insure wildlife management is funded adequately for our Colorado Division of Wildlife.  

Kent Ingram
27 years Commercial Banker
Lifelong hunter/fisherman/wildlife enthusiast
Board Member- Colorado Wildlife Federation
Awardee-CAMPO "William Funk Award" for Building Community

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