Bills to increase hunting, fishing license fees move forward

But officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources say that an increase in the license fees anglers and hunters pay is needed to keep the Game and Fish Fund from a negative balance, which could occur as early as July 2013.

Minnesota legislators have introduced bills to increase the fees. Among a long list of license increases proposed are: resident angler license to increase from $17 to $24; annual married couple angling license from $25 to $40; resident deer hunting license from $26 to $30; small game license from $19 to $22. The fees haven’t changed since 2001.

The first committee deadline is next week.

The state’s largest deer hunting group, Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, has supported the proposal.

“Let us pay more. We’re volunteering,” Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, has reportedly said.

According to the DNR, license fees paid by anglers and hunters go into a special account called the Game and Fish Fund, a dedicated account that ensures license dollars are used only for fish and wildlife-related work.

In November the state’s top budget forecasters projected the fund to go into the red in 2013 — at least one year earlier than the previous forecast.

 As a result, DNR officials say that unless the Legislature takes action this session, the DNR will need to make significant additional cuts between now and July 2013 to stay within its budget. Officials say the cuts will affect the quality of hunting, fishing and natural resources law enforcement.

No action by the Legislature will result in less habitat work, less species management and less research on how to maintain and improve fish and wildlife populations, which DNR staff say will result in less opportunity for state residents.

The DNR says that Minnesota is one of the nation’s top five angling destinations, not only because it has a lot of lakes but because the fishing in those lakes is very good thanks to an integrated system of population surveys, individual lake management and ongoing research to maximize outcomes and minimize management costs. This management system will continue to erode without an infusion of additional license revenue.

The DNR’s hunting and fishing license fee initiative was included in the biennial budget that Gov. Mark Dayton presented to the Legislature last year. The Legislature took no action on the proposal at that time, when lawmakers were focusing on resolving a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. And revenue projections at the time suggested the Game and Fish Fund would remain solvent through fiscal year 2014, giving lawmakers an additional year to address the issue.

However, DNR officials say the urgency is higher now because revenue projections indicate the Game and Fish Fund will go negative by July 2013.

According to the DNR, the situation changed from last year for three reasons that total up to $7.6 million in less revenue. The 20-day state government shutdown in July 2011 cost the Game and Fish Fund about $2.2 million because fishing licenses could not be sold. In November 2011, state budget forecasters, who assess a broad scope of economic data, revised downward their fishing license revenue projections by $1.1 million. Finally, in late 2011, federal budget forecasters predicted a $4.3 million decline in revenue into Minnesota’s Game and Fish Fund from federal reimbursement programs.

Legacy Amendment dollars cannot and were never intended to pay for core fish, wildlife and enforcement operations. The Legislature specifically stated that Legacy dollars could not be used for those functions. Expenditures for staff, field offices, vehicles and other infrastructure will continue to come largely from the Game and Fish Fund, which is dependent on license sale revenues.