When I learned that the Department of Environmental Conservation had decided to skip this year’s State Fair due to “budget problems,” I think my blood pressure must have risen by 40 points. And I get aggravated every time I think about it.
Those of you who have attended the fair probably know that the DEC has been an annual presence there, operating out of their special log building, ever since 1972 when the newly created and much larger DEC replaced the old NYS Conservation Department. Historically it’s been a great opportunity for DEC to promote, exhibit, teach about its function, sell sporting licenses and permits, and generally interact with fair-goers, especially sportsmen and women but also with all who visit the center. Basically it’s been great public relations, say nothing of services and sales of sporting licenses it provides.
In its statement the DEC said: "At a time when DEC is reducing staff and rationing its resources on a daily basis to maintain core functions, we cannot justify spending funds for the travel, shipping, supplies, rentals and other operational costs, nor can we afford to dedicate the many hours of staff time required for state fair operations." Say what? Core functions? Does that mean continue paying the salaries and benefits of its top-level executives and bureaucrats? By the way, how many of them would have been at the fair and present in the center anyway?
Sportsmen have continued to purchase licenses and permits (at an increased cost) to insure that their interests and applicable programs are maintained. But a major source of those license sales, the license sales booth at the State Fair that is manned by Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources (FWMR) personnel (not the top-level execs), is being terminated this year by FWMR in order to reduce expenses. In other words the DEC is telling us the financial cost for the effort to sell sporting licenses, the major source of Conservation Fund income, and to present a visible and positive public presence among fair-goers is simply not worth it? I suspect that if a large business corporation made a similar decision, their entire board of directors would be fired.
The DEC's annual budget is $1.5B, and  fish and wildlife programs are about $100M of that budget.  However, the Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources (FMWR) is about $50M of that $100M.  $50M out of $1.5B total department budget is far less than a tip in the scheme of things (or about 3 percent.  Just try leaving a 3 percent tip at your favorite restaurant next time and see what level of service you get next time). And that $50M is coming from primarily our license fees (the Conservation Fund) and Federal Aid.  And that $50M support should be even more now after the recent and significant license fee increases.  And yet, the Dept of Budget (DOB) keeps coming after the 3 percent that we're paying for via our purchases even though they're for specific products ( in this case fish and wildlife pursuits), not mandated taxes for who knows what.
I know that the spike in lifetime license sales prior to the across-the-board increases not only generated more money into the Conservation Fund but also meant fewer annual licenses would be sold to seniors who qualified for the lifetime licenses, and I’ve said as much in past columns. But dollars are dollars, whenever you get them. So what did the state plan to do with that extra money, and did the DOB anticipate the drop in sales when it decided to cut fish and wildlife funding this year?
 Income from sporting licenses, the additional taxes on related sporting equipment, and targeted federal funds are “supposed” to be protected via the dedicated Conservation Fund, but it seems that when budget cuts are made, the DOB finds ways to trim the supplemental funding that is critical to maintaining the level of programs that fall under the Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources umbrella, leaving it to operate with its paltry 3 percent share of the DEC’s $1.5B budget. Using that mindset and approach by the State would indicate, at least to me, that New York could care less about the natural resources that fall under FWMR’s responsibility. Nor does it apparently care about the billions of dollars that annually flow into state and local coffers from sporting activities spending.
Resident sportsmen and women generated an annual spending total of $1.8B, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2006 survey (although the recent economic decline probably saw this shrink somewhat). The amount of money that flows in should definitely have a major economic impact on the state coffers of New York as well as an impact on many lives. And this doesn’t include the spending of 221,000 non-resident anglers and 75,000 non-resident hunters that visited the state (again, 2006 figures). And now the State says it “can’t afford” during the state’s largest fair to promote activities that generate that much money?
While I’m neither an accountant nor a financial genius, when a state agency gets so large that its responsibilities are so overextended, both financially and manpower-wise, it basically becomes impotent, that hints to me that it’s just too big to be effective. The coverages under the DEC’s umbrella were already stretched so thin that it’s a miracle anything of worth got accomplished. When the natural gas drilling phenomenon literally exploded in New York, it seemed to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Faced with widespread economic woes, another ridiculously late budget, pork barrel political battles between downstate and upstate, fish, wildlife and marine resources programs apparently were reprioritized even lower than they had been in the past.
So unless the powers-that-be in Albany have a change of heart, that attractive log building at this year’s state fair will be filled with nothing more than empty promises.