Where should RCW 77 (Fish and Wildlife) fines go?

[bigtex]

This may be new info for some of you. Fines from RCW 77 (Fish and Wildlife code) (no matter what agency writes the ticket) goes into one of two places. The fine can either go into the state General Fund or the county where the citation was written. So essentially right now WDFW gets no direct incentive from the tickets, especially since WDFW is getting less funding from the general fund every year.

How it is determined where the money goes is up the individual county. Counties can either keep the fine money, OR receive Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) on the WDFW land in their county. If the county chooses to receive PILT then they money goes to the general fund. And if they choose to keep the money they do not get PILT. Roughly about 30 counties elect for PILT and 9 keep the fine money.

The only fine money WDFW gets is from restitution if ordered by a judge or the criminal wildlife penalty assessment for cases involving the illegal take of big game animals. All other fines are distributed as I mentioned above.

So for the poll. You can either keep the process as is. Direct the money that is currently going to the General Fund into the Wildlife Fund which funds all WDFW programs. Or direct the money that currently goes to the General Fund to the Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Reward Account. The Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Reward Account does several things, it helps fund hunter ed, helps fund WDFW investigations, provides money for poaching rewards, and funds other WDFW Enforcement issues.

[bigtex]

kinda shocked there hasn't been a comment on this

[sebek556]

kinda thought this would be a no $h|t type thing..

[Jingles]

The reason I say wildlife enforcement reward account is Because I'm tired of all the property that WDFW is purchasing here in Okanogan County Rewards should be higher for catching violators. 

[bigtex]

The reason I say wildlife enforcement reward account is Because I'm tired of all the property that WDFW is purchasing here in Okanogan County Rewards should be higher for catching violators.

Jingles,
I am glad you brought up the land acquisition. Land acquisition especially by WDFW and BLM has been a hot topic in Okanogan County. A lot of people think that WDFW is purchasing the land through WDFW/Wildlife Fund money, that is false. The large majority (if not all) of the land acquisitions by WDFW statewide are through grants. For example, at the April commission meeting the commission approved 4 land acquisitions in Okanogan County totalling nearly 400 acres and $1.74M, however that money came from two grants; US Fish and Wildlife Service and a WA Recreation and Conservation Agency's WA Wildlife and Recreation Program. So zero of that $1.74 came from any WDFW money.

Then you have groups like the Public Land Trust that actually purchase private lands and work with state agencies to donate/sell the land to the agency. There is a large National Park Service grant program that gives money to state to purchase park and wildlife areas as well.

Something that people should be aware is that WDFW is the only state agency that is required to pay a form of land taxes (PILT as mentioned above) on their lands. People often say that when the state govt buys land that it is taken off the taxrolls, in WDFW's case that is false. DNR and State Parks doesn't pay any type of land tax or PILT.

Federal agencies are also usually required to pay PILT, however there are some exceptions. But for this argument in 2011 Okanogan County had a total of 1,562,110 acres of federal lands (BLM-57,105, USFS-1,498,990, BOR-4,949, NPS-331, USACE-735) which consisted of their PILT payments. As a result Okanogan County received over $2.1M from the federal government in PILT payments for those 1.5M acres. Okanogan County received the second highest PILT payment in the state, Chelan County received $21,000 more. In total WA counties received nearly $14M in PILT payments from the feds in 2011.