The SAO has just posted the performance audit of the WDFW Puget Sound crab program. It can be found at:

http://www.sao.wa.gov/auditreports/auditreportfiles/ar1002690.pdf

Now to see if it has anything meaningful.....

Thanks... Good explanation of the tribal issues there along with how its allocated.

AuntyM:

Absolutely nothing regarding a review of dedicated funds expenditures! Pretty pathetic considering that was the primary issue driving this audit. This failure will certainly ignite another round of conjecture about misuse of those dedicated account funds and undermine the legislature's efforts to expand this type of supplemental funding.

As soon as I complete this post I will be e-mailing Rep. Kelley who is the Chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) and with whom I have been communicating about the difficulty in getting this audit accomplished. Now it will turn to what is NOT included in the audit.

By the way, Rep. Kelley in his role as Chairman of the JLARC may be contacted if you wish to express your thoughts regarding both the lack of timeliness and especially the failure of the SAO to even look at the expenditure issue (but please be cordial as he has been helpful in contacting the SAO for me):

Kelley, Rep. Troy [Kelley.Troy@leg.wa.gov]

I read that Blatant Piece of [censored], then went out and hosed myself off. I may need to go outside and hose myself off at least another doze times before the sun goes down. Old Sonntag ought to be very embarassed by that inept POS report. Where's the Money, what did they spend it on, etc., etc., Representative Kessler ought to be very "Embarassed" by this report. It is high time to shut off the money flow to the bunch of inept bureaucrats if and until they get the point of exactly who they are working for!!!!!

And the most Ironic Part, it took SAO over three G**d*** years to come up with that

Yo BrushBear -- Do you want to point out to Sonntag what level of compliance reporting all other State F & W's are happy achieving?????

I also noticed the number of times recreational crabbers were bashed for their low compliance rate in returning CRCs or otherwise reporting and the audit's failure to compare those return rates to compliance rates achieved by other states.

Also, note the recommendation to push up the penalty until it starts to cause folks to not participate. Since this whole Puget Sound endorsement idea was initiated by the sports community I guess we have achieved the "no good turn goes unpunished" award.

Anyway, here is something I pulled out of the initial Statement of Work for the private firm with whom the SAO originally contracted (Contract's Appendix A, page 9):

"This performance audit will audit the sport crab fishing program, focusing on the management of the fishery, fishery monitoring and accountability reporting, and budgeting and expenditure tracking for the fishery." (emphasis added)

So how did it come to be that the original audit scope included looking at budgeting and expenditure tracking yet the audit actually performed by the SAO did not address that very significant aspect?

I do believe the SAO put the spotlight on the Commission to address the allocation issue. I do wish the report had included information on the total Washington crab catch to include the Coast as it would have shown how much of the total catch statewide is achieved by the commercial fleet which I feel should make it easier for the Commission to reallocate within Puget Sound.

I was also a bit miffed by the information regarding recreational crabbers' incidence of violations without going into the nature of the violations. Mike Cenci did this in a recent issue of The Reel News giving numbers but not breaking out the nature of the violations. Were they over limits/undersized crab type violations or a more administrative failure to immediately record the catch violation. If the latter type I believe too much was made of this issue and, in fact, possibly indicates a need to look at that requirement.

Here is my communication to Rep. Kelley to include urging his committee to reject the audit (hope they have that authority) and direct the SAO to re-accomplish to include budget and expenditure review:

Rep. Kelley:

Thank you again for your willingness to engage the SAO on their failure to produce the performance audit of the WDFW’s Puget Sound Dungeness Crab program in a timely manner.

That performance audit was finally issued today and posted to the SAO’s website this afternoon. Initial review of the audit has a number of sport crabbers already expressing their dismay that the SAO did not include any information regarding the expenditure of dedicated funds resulting from the $3.00 annual endorsement (and which generated over $600,000 in 2009 alone). Many sport crabbers have been concerned that those dedicated funds have not been utilized as intended by the sport crabbing community which initially presented this idea to the legislature nor by the resulting legislation.
As you may recall this performance audit was initiated by Rep. Kessler at the request of one of her north Olympic Peninsula constituents approximately three years ago. The SAO subsequently decided to outsource performance of the audit to a private firm.

The contract between the private firm and the SAO contained “Attachment A” Statement of Work which at page 9 included the following requirement:

“This performance audit will audit the sport crab fishing program, focusing on the management of the fishery, fishery monitoring and accountability reporting, and budgeting and expenditure tracking for the fishery.” (emphasis added)

The SAO then terminated that contract prior to completion, revised the statement of work, and undertook in-house performance of the audit.

As I mentioned to you earlier the failure of the SAO to accomplish this audit in a timely manner stirred conspiracy theories, undermined confidence in the WDFW and caused sport anglers to question the legitimacy of this type of special endorsements. Now that the audit has finally been issued those concerns have not been ameliorated and, in fact, have been reinforced by the fact that the SAO did not include any review of the budgeting and expenditure tracking.

ACTION REQUEST

As the Chair for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee I urge you to review the original audit requirement and determine why the final performance audit as performed by the SAO did not include the fundamental review of budgeting and propriety of funds expenditure. I further urge you to reject the audit and direct the SAO to re-accomplish the audit with emphasis on the manner in which those dedicated funds were budgeted and expended to determine whether the expenditures were within the legislative intent and efficiently utilized.

Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter.

Here is a link to the membership of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee:

http://www.leg.wa.gov/JLARC/Pages/members.aspx

Don't mean to interrupt the train of thought here...

I thought this was an audit of income and expenses - I could not find any data in the report.. Am I just dumb ass or what - all I could find was a boat load of blame placed on the (lowest take user) recreational fishamen in defense of the outstanding commiercial and tribal fisheries.

Is there an appendix to the document with the actual income and expenditures that we can review ? How abut cost of the audit...

[quote=Larry B]AuntyM:

Absolutely nothing regarding a review of dedicated funds expenditures! Pretty pathetic considering that was the primary issue driving this audit. This failure will certainly ignite another round of conjecture about misuse of those dedicated account funds and undermine the legislature's efforts to expand this type of supplemental funding.

As soon as I complete this post I will be e-mailing Rep. Kelley who is the Chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) and with whom I have been communicating about the difficulty in getting this audit accomplished. Now it will turn to what is NOT included in the audit.

By the way, Rep. Kelley in his role as Chairman of the JLARC may be contacted if you wish to express your thoughts regarding both the lack of timeliness and especially the failure of the SAO to even look at the expenditure issue (but please be cordial as he has been helpful in contacting the SAO for me):

Kelley, Rep. Troy [Kelley.Troy@leg.wa.gov]

[/quote)

I'll email my frustrations also.

I'll PM you coastal #'s

A very common mistake and perseption outside the Auditing Community. Basically you are right about "Normal" audits, i.e., do all the columns add up, cross hatch, balance, etc. Performance Audits are a different animal and a very useful tool in both business and Government. Performance Audits can include but don't have to include the number balancing function. Their main purpose and I'll use the legislatively enacted CRC program as an example. The legislature, when they wrote the legal eagle language for the CRC, Instructed/commanded the WDFW to not only charge us sports crabbers an annual fee, but to "Establish" a sports caught crabbing system/methodology to count the sports caught crab that would stand "Smell Tests" of Validity of said system. Then WDFW was instructed to actually count the Sports Caught Crab. And finally, WDFW was charged with analyzing the count in relationship to Tribal caught crab (they have their own counting process) and Commercially caught crab (they also have a seperate counting system), for the expressed purpose of allocating the annual poundage of catchable dungeness crab. Prior systems/methods/mumbly pegs WDFW shellfish management program used to count sports caught crab were generally thought of being one step up from a comedy act with numbers and poundages pulled out of their collective arses to rationalize re-allocating sports crab poundage to the 225 or so active commercial crabbers. WDFW, and in particular, the shellfish management program fought tooth and toenail against the CRC which we sports crabbers pushed through. The shellfish management program wanted the status quo of Opinions coming out of their collective backsides for poundage allocation purposes, instead of "Auditable" numbers that the CRC was "Supposed" to provide. Good Count (No Joke) system of crab counting (kind of like what is done in British Columbia via a Contract) would REQUIRE Childers to get off his lazy no good for nothing (and No More Lying to the F&W Commission Childers about the advisor head count for and against your latest Opinionated proposal -- Got your foot nailed to the floor on that one) backside and actually do some allocation analysis.

The SAO Failed to even address how well the WDFW Shellfish Management Program did or did not accomplish what the legislature wanted/intended them to accomplish by eacting the CRC. That is what Larry B is pointing out.

That report is a joke, and a expensive (for us) joke. I can see Childers' technical review hand editorializing all through it. What Larry B pointed out above, the times the report singled out the sports non-compliance.

Sorry for the long winded shellfish program ineptnitude rant, but the Other Shoe is about to drop/fall, the Puget Sound Blackmouth Performance Audit. Stay tuned folks we still haven't been bent over in an Ungreased No Kiss Behind the Ear yet.

and we paid over one million dollars for that crap kid of sad

So,
If they sucked a million to trash and restart this BS report a few times, what did they get to publish it. hmmmmmm think think think,
oh ohhh

BOHICA

Seems Rep. Kelley sent me a message today that he is holding a brown bag lunch for constituents of the 28th district in the near future. It is already on my calendar! Given that the Legislature is in session there may be other opportunities coming up with your own Senators and Representatives.

JohnQ, thanks for putting my perceptions into context. I was having the same thought about how the audit was written; the tone of it. I would not have expected that to have come from the SAO folks.

Amen,
We have the technology to provide extremely accurate information about who, what, when, where, and how much for commercial, tribal, and recreational.

What resolution would you like ?

I don't want to come across as alarmist, but data in the audit indicated the Puget Sound crab fishery is not in very good shape in many areas.

Personnally, the resolution I would like would be a re-allocation of all commercial caught crab in the Strait & Sound to Sports Crabbing. It should NOT happen over night but a gradual re-allocation of those marine areas in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 percent per year until it was all sports allocation. As far as the "Conservation Angle", I seriously doubt ANY over harvest would occur, ever. Why you say? I don't believe WDFW for one nano second regarding their over blown estimates of our catch rates. Their various "Counting Methodologies" have been a very sick joke for ages and quite frankly I do NOT expect it to improve one iota until the current Shellfish Manager is replaced, ergo the Screwed Up Performance Audit of the CRC. Where oh where in that useless joke was one sentence of discussion/discovery/analysis of their (WDFW) counting methodology???? NONE, that I believe was the most important point Marsha (AuntyM) was writing about. If you would like, PM me your email address and I will send you the Statement of Work for the 3 Performance Audits, just promise me you won't go out and puke your guts out after reading what you & I & everybody paid a million plus dollars of our licenses fees for and waited 3 plus years to get.

Chuckled a bit over AuntyM's very succinct observation regarding the crab count debacle versus the way shrimp catch is monitored. Then I realized that she has created an argument for a new shrimp CRC .......... ouch!

Seriously, the WDFW's first responsibility is to manage resources in a manner to ensure long term healthy populations whether there is any harvest or a harvest that is commercial, recreational or some combination thereof.

Given the ongoing increase in population around Puget Sound and the corresponding increase in recreational demand in this close-in and comparatively safe inland water I also believe that all of Puget Sound non-tribal crabbing needs to transition to sport harvest. Note that all of P.S. south of crab areas 2E and 2W (call that Marine Areas 8 and 9) are currently reserved for recreational use and that area 8 (8-1 and 8-2) regularly see the sport harvest allocation met or exceeded during the summer season according to the Department's calculations and that is with the 4 day a week/5 crab a day limit.

Pretty frustrating to visit relatives in Biloxi MS and see all you can eat Dungeness buffets advertised at the casinos.

Not 100% but I think the data is telling us the system can not support 2 commercial fisheries. I just hope the WDFW will put monitoring in place ASAP to prevent derelict pot population increase from 15,000 to 25,000.

Gary, that is the issue they will have to wrestle with in looking at changing the allocation within Puget Sound. At some point there will simply not be enough crab available to the commercials to support an economical (viable) commercial operation within Puget Sound.

And while derelict pots are certainly not desirable they are required to be fitted with rot cord that will quickly render them inert in terms of continued crab mortality (or at least that is the theory); unlike derelict gill nets.

At least the shrimp wouldn't be trying to take off your fingers or toes while you pull them out of the pot, check the (cough) sex, squeeze them to ensure they are (cough) hard enough and then record them while making sure the skiff doesn't drift into something dangerous and being sure to get that pen to write on the crappy wet paper that keeps trying to blow away.

Another case of needing two heads and four hands to do the job......