Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401170030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That has game officials expressing enthusiasm for the first time in months. Organized outdoorsmen are saying, "It's about time."
The department suffered a financial drought during the Wilder years, a time when the agency was squeezed between budget cuts and expanding responsibilities.
Even old friends in the General Assembly appeared to become foes. The agency's requests for fiscal help often were met with "Now's not a good time."
"NO MONEY" was the way the Virginia Wildlife Federation described the fish and game department with 1 1/4-inch bold headlines in a special January issue of its publication, the Federation Record.
"Virginia's wildlife appreciators face a big loss of services from the game department," the federation report said. "It is no longer a thing that could happen, or might happen. It is beginning to happen now."
There was nothing to abate the bleak outlook in Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's budget for the 1994-96 biennium. Presented in late December, it contained no new funds for the fish and game department. In fact, there was an absence of appropriations from the general fund for highly visible projects already started, including shad restoration efforts and fish-passage construction.
For the game and fish department, which has moved into 1994 with six out of 11 new board members, that left final hope in the General Assembly, in a new governor and in a get-tough attitude on the part of outdoorsmen.
"The sportsmen of Virginia are tired of scratching people's backs; they want to kick some butts," said Jim McInteer, a district director of the Virginia Wildlife Federation and past executive director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
No longer willing to stand back and accept whatever the General Assembly gave it, the game and fish department spent much of 1993 putting together a document called "2003: A Vision for the Future." It takes an agency that was created to serve a sport hunting and fishing constituency and sends it into the next century as a department that embraces all wildlife interests. To launch it, the department hammered out a five-point fiscal shopping list.
Last week, several veteran legislators introduced bills that addressed the department's objectives. While they didn't embrace all of the agency's financial requests, the measures, if approved, certainly would give the department a welcomed financial boost.
Three of the bills came out of a long-range funding committee headed by Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke. The committee earlier had been criticized by the Virginia Wildlife Federation, who called it the "Can't Do Committee," saying that in its four years of existence it had failed to provide funding for wildlife and boating.
"I know there have been frustrations," said Thomas. "But you have to get to a certain point before you can do something."
One bill sponsored by Thomas would reroute the boat sale-titling tax from the general fund to the fish and game department's boating program. That would bring just over $2 million annually into the boating program, which is approximately how much in operates in the red.
Thomas sees this as a key issue.
"We have to get that before we do anything," he said. "I can't go home and tell sportsmen that I am going to raise their hunting and fishing licenses when their money already is going to supplement the boating program."
Other bills have been introduced to increase the price of a trout license (that program is operating in the red) and to charge a fee from users of department lands, lakes and facilities if they don't have a hunting or fishing license or a registered boat.
Interest in the game and fish department's financial needs also is being expressed by ranking members of the House Appropriations Committee, and many observers believe Gov. George Allen will be a supporter of the agency.
Even some Democrats are saying Allen, who courted the outdoor vote, is likely to be kind to the department.
"I think they have a friend in the governor's office, and that to me is good news," said Thomas, who has been telling sportsmen to back the game and fish department through letters to Allen and House and Senate representatives.
David Whitehurst, assistant director of the game and fish department, likes what he is seeing:
"We have been operating in some very cloudy weather for the last month and a half, and now we are beginning to see some rays of sunshine."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB