On Hold A state-mandated audit of the Game Commission will answer questions, but delay projects
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lastweek’s announcement that the Pennsylvania Game Commission will be audited has stopped further talk among legislators about funding one of the state’s two wildlifemanagement agencies.
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said he will conduct the Game Commission’s first performance audit in nearlya decade.
“Through my review, I will evaluate the commission to ensure its resources are being used to benefit the millions of Pennsylvanians who enjoy hunting, trapping and other outdoor recreational activities,”he said in a statement.
Bryan Burhans, executive director of the Game Commission, said it’s all just a part of dealingwith the system.
“I welcome it,” he said, of the audit. “These things come up from time to time and we’re prepared to deal with the Auditor General and the legislature in a productive way.”
The Game Commission operates on a budget of about $100 million and issues about 900,000 hunting licenses annually. It is almost entirely fundedby license fees and permits,revenue from natural resource leases and a federal excise tax on guns and hunting gear. The previous time the Legislature approved an increase in hunting license fees wasin 1998. THIS WEEK: Pennsylvania’s general fund, acquired through taxes, should be tapped to enable the Game Commission to continue providing services during an upcoming audit of the agency. • Yes • No • LAST WEEK: All ruffed grouse hunting should be temporarily suspended until the bird is less stressed and population increases.
The audit will cover Game Commission activity from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2017. The Auditor General’s office will analyze all sources of commission revenue and expenditures, determine each fund’s year-end balance including money held in escrow or restricted accounts, and review all spending, including property acquisition, to insure it has been lawful. Also, the audit will investigate the management of whitetail deer andruffed grouse.
Burhans said initial questions about the number of motor vehicles in the Game Commission’s fleet seem to have been resolved. Of 280 passenger vehicles, 49 are for law enforcement. The agency maintains another 191 tractors, dump trucks, tilt-beds and other work machinery, and has a full-time staff of about700.
Legislators including the prime backer of the audit, House Game and Fisheries Committee member David Maloney Sr., R-Berks, have for years challenged the Game Commission’s pleas for a license-fee increase. Contrary to being broke, they claim, the agency has a $55 million rainy day fund filled with revenue from excise taxes following eight years of record-setting gun sales. Furthermore, the agency’s 1.5 million acres of state game lands in 65 counties, they say, should be considered a financial asset.
“You’ve got to be careful about what they’re calling ‘rainy day’ funds,” Burhans said. “We have to deal with potential catastrophes like chronic wasting disease and West Nile virus. We can’t predict what we’ll get from leases or Pittman-Robertson [excise taxes]. We need a cash reserveof that size as a part of normal operating procedures. We haven’t had to tap into it yet, but when a catastrophehappens it has to be there.”
Burhans said he’s not sure how the deer management plan got thrown in with the audit. When the plan was audited in 2008-09, it consumed the agency for nearly a year. It is not known how long Game Commission staff might be preoccupied with audit-related requests, when the audit will begin or when discussion may resume about raising license fees.
“We’ll deal with it like we’ve always have. There are things we’d like to do that will get put on hold,” Burhans said. “We’re hoping to build a Pymatuning nature museum, there’s a southcentral regional office that needs to be replaced, other capital projects. But we’re not going to nickel and dime every program. We don’t want to stop doing what hunters, trappers and the people of Pennsylvania expect us to do, and that’s manage our wildlife.”
Ripples from a Game Commission audit also might rock Fish and Boat’s $52 million budget. As long as funding options for the wildlife management agencies are linked, that cash-strapped agency has beenput on hold, too.