Legislation would re-route fish and wildlife fine $ 3/11 Update

[bigtex]

House Bill 1073 sponsored by Reps Johnson, Blake, Chandler, Haigh, Takko, Ross, and Schmick will go before the House Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources tomorrow. The title of the bill is “concerning payments to counties in lieu of property taxes on state-owned land.” The sponsors are both Republicans and Democrats.

Historically under state law counties could either keep all fines associated with fish and wildlife crimes OR elect to receive a “payment in lieu of taxes” (PILT) for certain WDFW owned lands in the county. If the county chose the PILT route then the fish and wildlife fines would go into the state general fund to be used by state agencies. Typically about 30 of the 39 counties elect to go the PILT route and give the fine money to the state.

What this bill does is requires that all counties receive PILT payments, but ALSO keep all fish and wildlife fine money. Thus meaning the state will no longer receive fine money for fish and wildlife fines. The only fines WDFW will receive are “criminal wildlife penalty assessment” money which are the result of big game poaching or certain protected species poaching, obviously which are not the “everyday” cases for WDFW.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2013&bill=1073

[bigtex]

Well since nobody seems to comment on this I'll provide some stats.

In the 2011-13 budget, WDFW received $57.7 Million from the General Fund. Enforcement received $9.9M of that. These fines currently go into the General Fund. Are the funds a lot? No but they do at least go to a fund which funds both the agency and the enforcement program. In comparison, under this legislation the fine $ would stay at the county level, thus not benefitting WDFW or any other agency at all.

[huntrights]

Keep 'em coming Bigtex.  We need to know about new legislation and changes to existing legislation. 

[bigtex]

Kind of interesting that in this poll: http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php?topic=85152.0

27/28 People wanted fish and wildlife fine money to go directly into WDFW accounts. But yet now it is being proposed that fish and wildlife fine money get completely removed from state accounts and put in county accounts and nobody says anything... 

[bearpaw]

Keep 'em coming Bigtex.  We need to know about new legislation and changes to existing legislation. 

I agree, glad to see you posting these. I haven't completely decided what I think about this one quite yet. But it does seem like the fines collected should provide funding for WDFW.

[bearpaw]

There is a cost to counties to process these court cases, does this legislation provide funding to the counties for their expenses?

[Gringo31]

I would like to see our Wardens fully funded to do a good job.....

but, I get a little nervous when there is pressure to write tickets IF it goes back into our own pockets.  I can see a bit of a conflict of interest....but then how does enforcement make up the 10M deficit should this pass?

[bigtex]

There is a cost to counties to process these court cases, does this legislation provide funding to the counties for their expenses?

All this legislation does is provide all fish and wildlife fine money to the counties AND requires that PILT payments be made to the county. Current law states that counties either choose the fine money or PILT, and almost all choose PILT. There is no other funding involved.

There is definitely a cost to counties to prosecute cases. However it is the district courts job to prosecute all county and state cases. And it shouldn't be a surprise that the largest share of state cases in district courts are brought by the WSP, typically WDFW is second, but I know of at least one county where the Liquor Control Board is the second ranking agency. The only county this doesn't apply is San Juan where there is no WSP, and WDFW is the #1 contributor for state cases. Under state law (unless there is an exception which there currently is for many crimes, such as fish and wildlife) 2/3 of all money brought into a district court stays in the county, 1/3 goes to the state. This law would make 100% of fish and wildlife money stay in the county.

Another example are forest product violations. These fines are shared equally between DNR, the Sheriff, and the County Clerk.

Basically the reason why counties typically decided to take the PILT payments was the $ was a lot higher then the fine money, but now they get both.

Now to me if the law stated that counties must use fish and wildlife fine money to aid/help prosecute fish and wildlife crimes that would be a different story. But under the law the county could use it for anything in the county budget.

I just don't like the idea of 1- forcing all counties to receive PILT, when right now it is currently an option, and 2- having all fish and wildlife fine money go to the county and have them use it as they see fit.

[bigtex]

but, I get a little nervous when there is pressure to write tickets IF it goes back into our own pockets.  I can see a bit of a conflict of interest....but then how does enforcement make up the 10M deficit should this pass?

There were no proposed cuts to WDFW Enforcement in the proposed 2013-15 Budget. WDFW has been very good at minimizing enforcement cuts under Director Anderson.

The money in a way does already go into "their own pockets." While right now the money doesn't 100% go to WDFW, it goes to a fund that funds most state agencies, including WDFW. If you want to look at agencies that really generate revenue, look at city and county agencies, for them there is definitely a "incentive" since so much of the money stays in their city/county budget.

[bearpaw]

There is a cost to counties to process these court cases, does this legislation provide funding to the counties for their expenses?

All this legislation does is provide all fish and wildlife fine money to the counties AND requires that PILT payments be made to the county. Current law states that counties either choose the fine money or PILT, and almost all choose PILT. There is no other funding involved.

There is definitely a cost to counties to prosecute cases. However it is the district courts job to prosecute all county and state cases. And it shouldn't be a surprise that the largest share of state cases in district courts are brought by the WSP, typically WDFW is second, but I know of at least one county where the Liquor Control Board is the second ranking agency. The only county this doesn't apply is San Juan where there is no WSP, and WDFW is the #1 contributor for state cases. Under state law (unless there is an exception which there currently is for many crimes, such as fish and wildlife) 2/3 of all money brought into a district court stays in the county, 1/3 goes to the state. This law would make 100% of fish and wildlife money stay in the county.

Another example are forest product violations. These fines are shared equally between DNR, the Sheriff, and the County Clerk.

Basically the reason why counties typically decided to take the PILT payments was the $ was a lot higher then the fine money, but now they get both.

Now to me if the law stated that counties must use fish and wildlife fine money to aid/help prosecute fish and wildlife crimes that would be a different story. But under the law the county could use it for anything in the county budget.

I just don't like the idea of 1- forcing all counties to receive PILT, when right now it is currently an option, and 2- having all fish and wildlife fine money go to the county and have them use it as they see fit.

I would agree, it sounds like I do not want this legislation to pass.

[bigtex]

I just watched the video of the hearing for this legislation. It looks like it will make it out of committee.

However I am ticked at what Representative Johnson said. Johnson said that counties do not receive PILT payments from federal agencies, which they do receive from WDFW. Johnson said that the main reasoning for this legislation is to essentially fill the gap that occured when the initiative that capped the license tab fees at $30.

Johnson lied when he said counties do not receive PILT from the feds. When in fact his counties (Clark, Skamania, Klickitat, and Yakima) received $528,000 from the federal govt.

Rep Johnson may want to do some research before making such comments.....

[bigtex]

3/11 Update

Bill never went up for a vote in the committee.