Where Should Fish and Wildlife Fine Money Go?

[bigtex]

With all of the talk about raising license fees I thought I'd bring this up a couple times but I thought I'd bring it up again. WDFW gets no direct funding for the tickets the fish and wildlife code tickets they write. The only time WDFW does get money is for the mandatory civil fines that are associated with big game poaching and protected wildlife poaching, obviously those are some of the least common offenses.

Historically, WA state law said counties can either keep 100% of the fine money and do whatever they want with it, OR receive payments in lieu of taxes for the WDFW land in the county. If they took PILT then 100% of the fine money went to the General Fund which funds everything in WA. About 30 counties would take the PILT, 9 would keep the fines. However, for about the past 8 years the legislature hasn't allowed WDFW to make PILT payments because of a lack of funding. Instead, the legislature changed the law ("temporarily" for about the past 8 years) which now dictates that counties will receive 100% of the fine money.

Should WDFW get all or a portion of the fish and wildlife criminal fine money??? If you look below, WA is the only state (out of ID, CA, MT, CO, AZ, and WA) that doesn't give at least some of the fish & wildlife fine money to the Dept of Fish and Wildlife

Washington:
100% to County (Present due to WA being unable to pay Payments In Lieu of Taxes to counties)
100% to County or 100% to General Fund. (Historical) County decides where it goes, if they elect to receive PILT then the money goes to the General Fund

Idaho:
2.5% State General Fund
10% Search & Rescue Account
22.5% District Court where filed
65% Fish & Game Fund

California:
50% to the County Fish & Game Commission
50% to the State Fish & Game Preservation Fund. Law authorizes CDFW to give this money to county prosecutors to prosecute fish and wildlife offenses.

Montana:
50% State General Fund
50% Fish & Game Fund

Colorado:
50% to Wildlife Fund or Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Fund depending on the species
50% to General Fund

Arizona:
100% to the Wildlife Theft Prevention Fund

[timberfaller]

Ya need to add,

Should the department be split back again to a Game dept. and a Fisheries dept.??

[pianoman9701]

A wildlife-related fine should go into habitat improvement and LE. Fishing fines should go into hatcheries and LE

[Dhoey07]

I think it should be split, but not 50/50.  I would say 20 to the county for  processing and handling and 80 to WDFW.

[boneaddict]

  that seems reasonable.   

[Bob33]

It's not right; is there any reason to believe this could change?

[JimmyHoffa]

A wildlife-related fine should go into habitat improvement and LE. Fishing fines should go into hatcheries and LE

I think that whatever animal was affected (except wolves) should benefit from the fines in such a way as to counter the damage done by the offender.  Example:  someone poaches an elk, the fines go to something that directly improves elk.

[Humptulips]

Sending the money back to F&W sets up a dangerous conflict of interest. Do we really want to see F&W officers feel they have to write tickets to make payroll? I do not.

[Badhabit]

Since the counties have to Prosecute the defendants the counties should get some of the fine money to offset their costs of prosecution. What DA/PA is going to prosecute if there is no incentive to do so? Can you imagine the costs Kitittas County is paying to prosecute Bullwinkle's killer? If they don't get a piece of the pie they have no incentive to go after him.

[bigtex]

Sending the money back to F&W sets up a dangerous conflict of interest. Do we really want to see F&W officers feel they have to write tickets to make payroll? I do not.

Well it's happening in a lot of other states, both liberal and conservative states... 

Personally, officers can only write so many tickets. Officers aren't machines and it's not like if this were to happen officers would be writing every single person a ticket.

[bigtex]

Since the counties have to Prosecute the defendants the counties should get some of the fine money to offset their costs of prosecution. What DA/PA is going to prosecute if there is no incentive to do so? Can you imagine the costs Kitittas County is paying to prosecute Bullwinkle's killer? If they don't get a piece of the pie they have no incentive to go after him.

I definitely see that view. I've always been a fan of mandating that counties that receive the $ then have to use it prosecute fish and wildlife offenders. But as of now, they can use it for anything they want. Build a park, library, art structure, etc.

[bigtex]

It's not right; is there any reason to believe this could change?

I mean anything could change, chances of it happening are probably slim. It would likely come from the legislature and not WDFW, just for appearance reasons.

When the legislature changed where Discover Pass fines went State Parks was against it simply because they didn't want the public to view them as "revenue generators." At that time they were handled the same way that traffic fines are split up, now it goes into the Discover Pass account so essentially WDFW gets 8% of a Discover Pass ticket.

Realistically, officers will always have that person that says their writing the ticket to generate revenue no matter where the funds go. Heck, federal citations go into a crime victims fund, I can guarantee you they get told their revenue generators all the time.

[JDHasty]

Ya need to add,

Should the department be split back again to a Game dept. and a Fisheries dept.??

YES!

[bigtex]

Ya need to add,

Should the department be split back again to a Game dept. and a Fisheries dept.??

It'll never happen.

[Humptulips]

If you can't see revenue generators in LE you have your eyes closed. I don't believe I want to see the equivalent of stop light cameras in F&W.
It might happen in other States, doesn't mean I want it to happen here.
And it could very well backfire for F&W enforcement with agents spending more time on non-F&W enforcement because they can write more tickets.
If the Department received all the fines I can guarantee you there would be pressure to write more tickets.