I received a news release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife yesterday detailing the need to cut services and eliminate employees due to funding issues. They will not be alone in their troubles, as wildlife management agencies all over the country will be facing similar decisions.
Budget cuts lead to WDFW layoffs, service reductions is the title of the story and it starts like this:
A $21 million reduction in state and other funding over the next two years will require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to lay off 76 employees and curtail some public services.
The layoffs, along with elimination of dozens of vacant positions, will be effective at the close of the current fiscal year June 30.
In these trying times, we would hope that government agencies of all stripes honor their fiduciary responsibilities and tighten the belt even as we do the same in our personal lives.
However, hope is not enough. It is incumbent upon us to make certain that these agencies make budget cuts and do so in a proper manner.
The unfortunate reality of budget cutting for government generally means reducing those programs that are both extremely visible and desirable or, in some cases, reducing those programs that are truly needed.
This strategy is used for the express purpose of making the public as uncomfortable as possible with the loss of programs and services. We The People are then much more amenable to tax increases or some other such “remedy” in order to get the services back on line that we desire.
Superfluous programs and political pork rarely, if ever, get the knife during hard times because politicians and bureaucrats recognize that once they are gone – and subsequently not missed – they become difficult, if not impossible, to resurrect.
When it comes to public finances, appearances are everything. As much as sportsmen understand the theory and applicability of camouflage in the wild we don’t always see the forest for the trees when it comes to the use of our license fees and excise taxes for wildlife management.
We have experienced very prosperous times in the past and this has allowed us to overlook misspending and overspending on the part of wildlife and habitat managers. Those days are over.
As game and fish agencies start taking the knife to budgets for the coming years, we need to be looking over their shoulders very carefully. Much is at stake.
Sportsmen labored diligently and honestly over the last hundred years to make the North American Hunting Model the best and most widely respected conservation model in the world.
We need to work just as hard to make certain that it doesn’t get lost now that hard times are afoot…
