Lately I have seen several folks complaining that our license fees go to the general fund and that as a result not enough gets spent on fishing and hunting. Many folks are convinced that licnes fee are way more than the state spends on WDFW. I have been hearing this repeated over and over as proof that we fishermen are getting screwed. Well here are the facts.

All Washington agencies budget on a biennium basis - that is for a two year period. For the most recent two year period F.Y. 1999-2001 the WDFW took in approximately $60.5 million from all license sales. In that same period they expended $274.8 million. The difference between license revenues and total expenditures came FROM the general fund and from various Federal grants.

So, this is my question. Do those of you who were complaining about not getting full value for our license fee prefer that we cut the department to make it self-sustaining based on license fee revenues, or do you want to pay roughly 4 times as much for your licenses.

If you thought it wasn?t fair for license fees to pay for other state services, now that you know other tax dollars are subsidizing the department do you think that?s fair?