A new study reveals that recreational fishermen contribute the lion’s share of revenue to the CDFW, but receive a pittance of the benefits.
Everyone appreciates transparency, especially when dealing with the sale of goods, services or even fishing trips. The one commonality in all three of those items for sale is money, and transparency is almost always expected. It’s no different, or should be no different, when we purchase our fishing licenses every year. Most of us don’t even bother to think about where our money is going. The standard train of thought is that it just goes to the Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW) to help pay for enforcement, hatcheries and other projects throughout the state.
Back in 2018, Senate Bill 854 directed CDFW to conduct a Service Based Budget review, which was conducted by CDFW staff, internal and external stakeholders, and subject matter experts. It was also overseen and audited by the independent accounting firm of Deloitte US, which reviewed the service standards, cost estimates and staffing requirements of CDFW in meeting its overall mission. We will talk about the findings of the review in a minute, particularly as it pertains to expenditures. But first let’s cover the income side of the ledger.
It’s no secret that the cost of our fishing licenses continues to go up every year, yet sales have actually been declining since the ’80s. It is worth noting that with the COVID-19 pandemic, licenses sales received a $14 million boost as more people actually got out and went fishing, which is great news for everyone. With that boost, plus the increase in fees over the past few decades (the price of a fishing license in California is one of the highest in the U.S.), you’d think CDFW is sitting pretty, financially speaking that is. Sadly, it’s quite the opposite, as this Service Based Budget review has revealed.
In 2020, CDFW reported that they received just over $81 million in sport fishing license sales and just over $4.5 million in commercial fishing license sales. Why bring this up? Well the $81 million in sport fishing license sales makes up a sizable chunk of that overall budget number compared to the amount of money that gets put in by the commercial side. Yet the money produced by license sales is being distributed to carry out all of these other tasks and responsibilities that CDFW is responsible for. The recreational anglers continue to pour millions of dollars into license sales every year, but we aren’t better off for it. It’s like paying $20 for a $4 jig.
Another problem revealed by the service-based budgeting exercise is staffing. CDFW built a catalog of all of the tasks that it performs, relying on over 100 subject matter experts to analyze almost 3,000 tasks that CDFW is charged with performing every year. While looking at the final report, you’d notice that there are a lot of gaps in hours required to fulfill the 7 different missions carried out by CDFW. For instance, under species and habitat conservation, CDFW is 75 percent understaffed to carry out that particular mission. The report states, “…the department is under-resourced to meet its mission. On the whole, the data suggests that the department requires approximately three times its current level of staffing to meet its mission. While operational improvements and process efficiencies can be undertaken to reduce staffing needs, the data illustrates a significant gap between current and mission levels of service.”
Let’s be clear, this isn’t an attack on CDFW, commercial fishing, or the good people who work for the Department. You start to drain the resource for the commercial side or raise their license fees, and our seafood costs go up, which hurts all of our pocketbooks. Or if there’s a realignment of mission goals by the department, suddenly our conservation and habitat efforts suddenly get placed on hold or get cut. The solution remains unclear for now, but at least we know where we stand. We know what role the recreational side plays in CDFW’s budget. This is the start of transparency.
To see the full service based budget report, go to: https://wildlife.ca.gov/Budget/Service-Based-Budgeting
