WDFW's Plan to Cover 30 Million Dollar Deficit

[Stein]

Bigtex,

Just one example.

How many IT people work for WDFW?  Why?

From what the local bio that runs the private lands program told me, WDFW IT support is provided by the state, not their staff.  They have no choice, the state mandates control over their website and they can only submit requests to get things fixed or upgraded - hence the reason for all of the huge delays in making things better.  Last time I heard, there was a 1-2 year wait for major upgrades.

[DOUBLELUNG]

WDFW is symptomatic of what is wrong with Washington state government: over-regulation, especially to appease or appeal to every special interest that can bend a legislator's ear.  No different than the funding shortfalls for every other mandate or court order that increases the cost of doing business/raising revenue.  it doesn't help having a governor that is a true believer that government can do a better job of spending your money than you can.

 

[DOUBLELUNG]

Bigtex,

Just one example.

How many IT people work for WDFW?  Why?

If you can honestly say WDFW isn’t bloated with non field personnel in Olympia, then I can only assume you work in Olympia.

As they say on ESPN “...come on, man!”

Quite a few years ago I attended some leadership training for natural resources agencies.  At that time, one yardstick of efficiency was the proportion of total employees working in the state capitol.  A highly efficient agency had 30% or less of employees in the capitol.  Last I saw there are about 900 in Olympia and 600 in the remainder of the state.  This is why, as Bigtex noted, there are less LEOs, biologists, land managers and other professionals in the field, even though total employment has increased. 

One huge problem with state government that I doubt a consultant would see is the Washington Management System.  WMS determines state agency manager pay largely by how many subordinates they have and how big their budget is.  State agency managers have every incentive to have more people working under them, especially as personnel increases are the easiest way to both spend more money and supervise more people.  An honest, dedicated supervisor in state government will try to do the most they can with the fewest resources, and is rewarded by being paid less.  At the same time, they see cunning bureaucrats who can secure funding and increase their number of underlings advance and make more money.  It is a toxic system that promotes waste and inefficiency, penalizes dedication and innovation, and crushes dedicated professionals into interchangeable government employee widgets.

[vandeman17]

As was stated by multiple other people, until all user groups share the burden, besides just increasing taxes, nothing will change. Hunters and anglers will still get the short end of the stick because we will be paying the increased taxes AND the increased license fees.

Only bought a deer tag and waterfowl endorsement this year and this just makes it easier for me to take my money elsewhere.

[Man Tracker]

In a centralized agency, please explain the purpose of having six DFW Regional Managers?  What exactly do they do?  How much would be saved w/o them?  Each DFW Program has a supervisor at the region, as well in Olympia.   Is it an additional cost w/o benefit to have a Regional Manager? 

[Special T]

Most consultants are there to justify a position held by those paying the consultant. It is a rare occasion that the person footing the bill wants the truth.  I've had personal experience with this and my professor whom owned a marketing agency prior said it was the norm.

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[Fl0und3rz]

Most consultants are there to justify a position held by those paying the consultant. It is a rare occasion that the person footing the bill wants the truth.  I've had personal experience with this and my professor whom owned a marketing agency prior said it was the norm.

I can see the need for a consultant in technical fields or other specialty fields where you don't have the expertise or time to devote to a particular problem. 

But here, it seems like WDFW_manager1 could have just turned to WDFW_manager2 and said, "We are doing a fine job, Right?" and called it good to go for price hikes.  This just seems like some kind of protect your phoney baloney job CYA maneuver to pin the accountability on a faceless consultant?  "Our hands are tied; consultant said we don't need to change anything but price hikes."

Why do you need a consultant to intervene? 

And isn't there some state auditor who could have performed at least the same apparently shoddy job without the extra expense?

[bigtex]

Last weekend i was checked on a small lake north of Spokane at 9:00PM while fishing on  a saturday. there was 3 officers in the boat. Doesn't make any sense to me. Waste of money.

Could easily be a field training officer and a trainee, along with another officer. When an officer is in the FTO process the FTO and trainee are considered to be one officer because the trainee must be under the direction of the FTO. This is common amongst all LE agencies.

[bigtex]

Shed some more light for me if you will bigtex:All the money from the antis,the wolf and owl lovers.Where does this money go?Does it go to legislatures and never into the WDFW funds at all.I mean the laws don't enforce themselves so should the outdoors men and women of this state file suit against the state for this funding to be put where it obviously is meant to go?

What money are you talking about? There's not a anti-hunting license out there...

[bigtex]

The biggest waste of money is we have duplicate service throughout 3 branches of government that need to be consolidated like other states.  Once we put Parks, DNR, and WDFW in the same agency we will eliminate a ton of duplicate work that all 3 agencies participate in no sense having 3 pygmy rabbit bio's working for 3 different agencies combine and it will afford us a better recreational service and sounder stewardship for our lands and wildlife.  I know they tried to entertain the idea years ago but with this continued trend of less opportunity and more fees something has to give

You merge all three and you end up with a bigger bureaucracy then what we currently have. Additionally, many people want to break up Fisheries and Wildlife like we had pre 1994. In the rare instances you do merge agencies there are always winners and losers, when Fisheries and Wildlife merged the fisheries side won. Would it reduce some duplication, maybe there's really not that much right now. State Parks doesn't have hardly any biologists. If you merge all three agencies you would still need the same amount of maintenance people to maintain the lands, it's not like the acreage would decrease, etc.

[bigtex]

In a centralized agency, please explain the purpose of having six DFW Regional Managers?  What exactly do they do?  How much would be saved w/o them?  Each DFW Program has a supervisor at the region, as well in Olympia.   Is it an additional cost w/o benefit to have a Regional Manager?

This one is always a hot topic. Realistically a WDFW Regional Manager is simply a political figurehead for the region.

[bigtex]

Bigtex,

Just one example.

How many IT people work for WDFW?  Why?

If you can honestly say WDFW isn’t bloated with non field personnel in Olympia, then I can only assume you work in Olympia.

As they say on ESPN “...come on, man!”

The consultant looked at WDFW IT staffing and found it did not need to be increased or decreased.

WDFW has one IT person per 30 employees
DNR has one IT person per 35 employees
WA Ecology has one IT person per 16 employees
State Parks has one IT person per 57 employees (inflated due to the high amount of seasonal employees in the agency)

[trophyhunt]

Haven’t read the entire thread so please excuse me if this has been said or asked. I’ve heard your a DNR employee bigtex, but wonder if you know this, how much money does the state take from the Wdfw to put in the general fund?  Seems to me, if the Wdfw could use all the revenue they create, then they would have plenty of funds??

[bigtex]

Haven’t read the entire thread so please excuse me if this has been said or asked. I’ve heard your a DNR employee bigtex, but wonder if you know this, how much money does the state take from the Wdfw to put in the general fund?  Seems to me, if the Wdfw could use all the revenue they create, then they would have plenty of funds??

Not a DNR employee.

The state doesn't take WDFW money and put it into the general fund. They used to take fishing fees but that was long ago. 100% of license fees stay within WDFW.

[trophyhunt]

So raffles, permit apps etc all go to the Wdfw?  Thanks