Colorado Wildlife Federation Colorado Parks and Wildlife released on September 3 proposed “revenue concepts” and proposed budget cuts under 3 scenarios requested by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission earlier this summer. At its meeting on September 12, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission determined that it favors the strategic scenario and likely will adopt it with tweaks at its November meeting. CWF made public comment at the September meeting.
CWF said that we appreciate the difficult work by CPW staff to develop the complicated strategic budget cut scenario, and that we have a few preliminary impressions and numerous questions. “We are looking for a unifying strategy in the strategic cuts scenario that is predicated upon vision and long term goals and outcomes. For example, we are looking at how and to what extent the habitat priority strategy steps down to the 5-year strategic cost cutting items — and how to gain a sense of which cuts need to be recovered in the future. We presume future cost recoveries for the cuts to research, field operations, populations monitoring, etc. will need to come from new revenue streams developed through a strategic planning process. It is very important to undertake a strategic a strategic planning process in the next 1-2 years.” We also expressed concern that the strategic annual cuts scenario includes reallocation of $ 1 million in habitat stamp revenue from acquisitions to operations and maintenance at state wildlife areas that have been/are acquired in part with habitat stamp funds. We had expected to see a 10 percent reallocation, not this much larger number. CWF then recommended that any reallocation be used for habitat improvements and not for replacing some of a property’s general operations and maintenance expenses. A needs assessment for such state wildlife areas, priorities and guidance should be developed before spending any of the reallocated funds. The Habitat Stamp Committee should review requests and perhaps proposed uses should compete in the normal request for proposals process.
Here are the links to CPW’s information:
Revenue Concepts —
wildlife.state.co.us/SiteCollectionDocuments/DOW/Commission/2013/Sept/ITEM17-CPWRevenueConcepts.pdf
Proposed Budget Cuts —