I'd encourage you to take the time to respond to the survey.


NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Contact: Jonathan Neville, (360) 902-8358

Public invited to comment
on WDFW enforcement program

OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is conducting a public survey to help assess the agency’s Enforcement Program.

The survey, available at http://wdfw.wa.gov/enforcement/surveys/customer_survey.html on WDFW’s website, consists of about 20 questions concerning the program’s priorities and performance in the field. It will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Those who would like the survey mailed or faxed to them should contact Jonathan Neville, at 360-902-8358 or jonathan.neville@dfw.wa.gov.

Respondents have through the end of the year to complete the survey. Those who completed a similar assessment in 2007 are urged to participate in the 2010 survey.

“It’s important that we hear from people, especially those who have interacted with our enforcement officers and staff,” said WDFW Enforcement Chief Bruce Bjork. “The information we receive will help us improve our resource protection and business practices and ensure that we are meeting the needs of the public.”

WDFW officers enforce all state laws, including those related to the taking of fish, shellfish and wildlife, boating safety, licensing, and habitat requirements. Officers also provide first response to incidents involving potentially dangerous wildlife, including bear and cougar, and other public safety issues.

In addition to enforcement officers, the program includes hunter education managers, dispatch/communications officers and other support staff.

done

Done. Comments left.

Done, and I hope Cenci starts honoring his committment to you Dave regarding the "Scofflaw Count." That was part of my comments.

I hope plenty of folks take the time to do the survey. LE always has issues, but most are brought on by things outside their immediate responsibility.

Pre-merger, there were 250+ patrol positions between the old Dept of Game (200 or so) and the Dept of Fisheries (50+). Today, they're patrolling the same amount of land and water with a just over 130 field positions after some RIFs and because of budget cuts. There are, I think, 17 positions in the marine detachment. Responsibilities have expanded greatly over the past 15 years. They're now trying to do resource protection with about half the manpower.

Bushbear -
With the continuing budget cuts and lay offs (have to believe that not muchfat left to cut) within the agency where do you think the agency should make cuts to continue to fund exisiting enforcement?

What other program cuts should be made to fund additional agents?

Tight lines
Curt

Done with comments.

They have loads of Hq Overhead Fat that has never been looked at. Go to www.IBloom.net and download the entire WDFW Personnel list with job titles. It is close to 60% Bloated overhead and most do not have anything to do with "Direct Mission Functions" of the WDFW. In fact they went from 82/83 IT Job Descriptions in 2008 through 20% budget cuts the following year and wound up with 105 IT Job Descriptions. Yet during that same time period, Hatchery and Hatchery Positions were cut way out of proportion. Then look at the Financial Analysts, PR types, (My Favorite!!!!) Communications Specialists, Administration Specialists, welders, carpenters, etc., etc. Those overhead type functions/jobs are far more efficient if the Service they represent was contracted out. There has been repeated Performance Audits and Recommendations to do that for the last 10 to 15 years. Yet WDFW management gets more Grade Top Heavy (More and More Program Managers), and in effect ignores those Audit Recommendations. I could on with quite a lot more specifics/details but it just pisses me off more and more, and gets worse by the year. The reason I am specifically responding/quoting your post is that stating the Fat is Zero, no more can be cut only spreads a false impression. Look and analyze the readily available data yourself.

I have to go along with the general thread that John Q posted. I'm sure there are folks getting ready to retire or who could be offered an early out in the middle and upper levels of the agency. Not filling those positions or having folks become more of a generalist rather than a specialist would help. As John Q has outlined, administrative growth hasn't been subject of much cutting over the past couple of years.

I generally understand the budget issues facing the agency and the state. I'll argue that WDFW is one of the few state agencies that makes money for the state. Cuts to the WDFW budget impact not only the agency but lots of other businesses that are dependent on folks who enjoy our natural resources. I don't know how to measure the loss of tax revenues and business losses as seasons are reduced/re-structured, or eliminated, but I'm sure it is there. Continued cuts to the agency have effects that our politicos can't seem to grasp. I hope they will take the time to do some serious work on the state budget this year and not spend time pushing penny ante bills that take up their time.

At a minimum, I don't think the LE section should be taking any hit on their share of general fund monies and I have mixed feelings about cuts from the wildlife fund. In a real sense, they are the front line for the agency and the group the public has most contact with - good or bad. Additionally, they provide support/mutual aid for other local, county, state, and federal agencies. Reducing LE funding, both operational (fuel, vehicles, travel, etc) and FTEs, reduces their effectiveness and presence for their primary job of resource protection. I'd also like to see the legislature take a serious look at how the state agencies manipulate their budgets and consider a zero base budget system. Within the WDFW and for most other agencies, there is a system where anywhere from 15% to 60% and more of a fund is skimmed off the top for "indirect costs". In the case of WDFW, that money goes to run administrative support sections. In another case, agencies are charged $20+ per employee per month to support IT services whether the employee has computer access or not.

I'd like to see the current vacant (7, I think) positions filled and I'd like to see the field force brought back up to pre-merger levels. It doesn't have to be done in a year, but should be accomplished within 5 years. That kind of growth would still be behind the needs, but it would be a start. In round figures, there is approximately one field officer for every 475 square miles, not counting the marine waters. FLSA restricts their work hours to about 171 hours/28 day work period. Add in vacation, sick leave, time for court cases, travel time to the edges of their patrol area or to work other areas as needed, time spent on training, equipment maintenance, and administrative duties and it is easy to understand why seeing a field officer can be a rare occurence.

With few exceptions, it has been my experience that LE is often the bastard calf of a fish and wildlife agency. Most staff and administrators don't have a clue what the field officer does nor how many times during the day when the officer has to shift from one responsibility to respond to something else that someone in the regional or headquarters office thinks has a higher priority. In some cases, that is true. In others, the officer now might have to travel for a couple of hours leaving a project half done only to have to go back and finish it some other time. LE is a necessary evil to many on staff and they'd just as soon have them out of sight and out of mind 'cause the work they do creates issues. In many cases, those issues are a result of poor planning and regulation development by other sections in the agency, but the officer is expected to respond and act accordingly. Something that looks good on paper doesn't necessarily translate to common sense activities in the field. The officer is damned if s/he does and damned if s/he doesn't.

It may be comparing apples and oranges, but the state patrol doesn't seem to be losing many officers. They have detachment offices and support staff. They get general fund support and I suspect they'll see some cuts. I can not and will not support any move that might be WDFW LE under the WSP. They are totally different agencies with very different missions. I would however like to see adequate funding for WDFW LE positions be recognized as a public responsibility by the WA Legislature.

That's enough of a rant for tonight. Bottomline is that I think kingdoms, principalities, and fiefdoms have been built within the agency and there is little or no interest in changing things 'cause that's the way its been done. The resource and the users end up losing.

DONE.

My only commentary....

"Individual officers doing a great job! But overall coverage is spread too thin, severely compromising the agency's effectiveness."

Done

First let's be clear hear I too would like to see more enforcement activity in the field. My question is given the current fiscal situation how would folks pay for? (cut what other programs?)

JohnQ -
I agree that WDFW is top heavy. Part of that is due to how jobs are labeled but the issue here is how cutbacks generally occur which typically the tendancy is to protect higher level jobs. Unfortunately the situation in WDFW enforcement is no different - that program is also top heavy -
just one example in 2008 not counting the Chief, deputy chief and any WMS positions in the support staff at headquarters there were 39 sergeants and above for the 96 field officiers; a ratio of 2.5:1. The ICAP staffing study (the holy grail of enforcement staffing) calls for a ratio of 3.6:1.

Bushbear -
I sure that we all would like to see the State through the general fund step up and increase funding for more WDFW enforcement. However we have to face reality hear (at least in the short term) that is not likely to happen. Even in good times the State has avoided providing additional general fund $$.

So again in the short term where should the agency cut non-enforcement programs to provide funds to keep current or increase enforcement staffing levels? Further hatchery production reductions?, elimination of fisheries monitoring?, closing regional offices? etc. Each and everyone of those actions will result in reduced services or opportunities. As informed users what are our priorities?

You mentioned "FLSA restricts their work hours to about 171 hours/28 day work period." Actually I believe that agreement assures that each agent will be paid for 11 hours of overtime every 28 days. Additional overtime can and has been approved above those 11 hours (for example working holidays). One way to pay for getting those 7 positions recently lost would be to eliminate those 11 hours of overtime (yes I understand that the officiers would have to agree - however this is a good example of decisions that the agency has made that helped put the agency in the pickle it finds itself). Even at straight time those overtime hours would be enough to "buy-back" 6.5 of those 7 agent FTEs.

My point is just like the agency as a whole it is not inappropriate to look at and even question some of the fiscal priorities in enforcement's decisions on budget issues.

I do have another question - you mentioned that in the old days the Game department had 200 "officiers". Were those "commissioned officiers" or game wardens? At that time in additiion to the game wardens many of the agency employees (bios, wildlife area managers, etc) carried commissions.

Tight lines
Curt

Aunty -
Those enforcement FTEs are pretty expensive; certainly the most expensive of the agency's traditional "field positions". Off the top of my head best guess a million dollars a year would buy maybe 8 or 9 FTEs. A significant portion of the cost of an enforcement FTE is in the support they require.

Tight lines
Curt

Smalma or Bushbear:

Why not have "others in the field" be able to do LE work?????? At least be able to write tickets for the infactions they see?????

I really liked the idea of "flooding the Humptulips area", with LE from other Regions of the State.....while I realize this can't happen all the time.........but for certain periods, peak runs of salmon.....it helps break that habit some people have of snag, snag, snag.

The snagging thing has just gotten too far out of hand......would be nice if the "fine monies" went back to the department.

I'd love to see the fine amounts increased...I'm aware of a few fines.......I just laughed at, when I heard the amount......wow....

Retirements.....Plan 1 should be "forced out"...time for them to move on....

If you commission field staff, like in the Game Department, you add all the associated activites to their plates. They write a ticket they will need to do the paperwork up to and including court. So, a bio doing a spawner survery writes up somebody. He may get to trade a day doing surveys for a court appearance. More tickets written, fewer streams surveyed.

I think that having more commissioned folks out there, including field staff, would help on the enforcement issue but would come at a cost to other duties. It would also give a greater understanding of enforcement to run of the mill staff.

Drifter -
I'm sure that Bushbear will be able to provide a better answer but I'll give it a shot.

As I said in my earlier post at one time other field folks did do law enforcement work -either with an agent or on their own. However both the world and the role of WDFW law enforcement has changed dramatically since then and for liability and training issues I doubt that is really possible today.

Back in the old Game Department days when many field folks had commissions (ability to enforce game laws) the role of game wardens was much different than today. That was prior to the time they were armed (as hard as that may be to believe in today's world), before they acquire full police powers and when they were primarily conservation officers not policemen. As conservation officers they were the face of the agency and likely the people that fishers and hunters were likely to encounter and go to folks for information by the public and media. Not only were they the point on enforcing fish and game laws they were often the folks collecting bag and creel checks, often drove fish planting trucks, back packed fish into remote waters, helped with the marking of fish marking and capture and/or tagging of wildlife, and a whole host of other wildlife work as needed. Something that is often over looked when folks look to recapture historic staffing levels is that many of the old game warden duties have been taken over by other WDFW staff while the old school conservation officers have become "fish and wildlife cops". Todays WDFW enforcement officers are now full time police officers expected to deal with the whole gamut of potential law enforcement situations where the routine activity can suddenly become something much more where having the untrained involved could be a recipe for potential trouble/liability for the individual and/or the agency

None of the above should be taken to mean that folks (either the public, other agency employees and the officers themselves) can not make better use of the agencies law enforcement presence and expertise. We all can help the enforcement officers work more efficiently through such programs as "eyes in the woods" or just be willing to pass on the information about individuals/areas with chronic or severe illegal activity.

Tight lines
Curt

Aunty -
I agree that the agency should look at the collection of those $10 penalities as mostly a one time windfall. One would think that once a carbber is dinged for that $10 they would either be more likely to remember the next year or drop out of the fishery.

Though one never really knows how folks will react. I remember during the 1980s when associated with a license increase there was a $5 rebate on your new steelhead punch card if you returned the previous. Even though folks complainted bitterly about the lic. increase only 20% of the steelhead punchcard holder bothered to turn in the old cards to get that $5.

Tight lines
Curt

Enforcement authority requires training and graduation from a police academy plus any additional training done by the agency and continuing training to maintain a commission. While there might interest in some folks to get the training and maintain a commission, it would take them away from their current job for a few months and then a month or more (including travel time, etc) during the succeeding years plus any court time, administrative time, etc. Most supervisors aren't going to cut an employee loose for that amount of time from their regular job responsibilities. The commission can work if the person came in as an officer and then moved on to another job within the agency and the supervisor buys off on the extra work.

Pre-merger, under the Dept of Game and before we became such a litigious society, more agency personnel carried commissions. For some folks, the commission was a perk and let them carry a badge in their wallet. With some exceptions, their "use" as an LE officer was minimal at best. Across the country, the ability for agency Directors to issue special commissions has pretty much gone away because of training requirements for meeting societal standards for people who can use deadly force. That is a good thing.

Fine monies going back the agency won't fly in this state without a statute change which is another potential topic for discussion.

Smalma is probably pretty close in his estimation that an officer position, with salary, benefits, operations costs, etc is around 100K per year. Federal and state rules dictate hours worked as do the union contracts that are negotiated between employees and the administration. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of wiggle room on either side. I'm sure many, if not most/all, officers are donating time over and above their authorization. If an officer can't respond community needs, it impacts his or her effectiveness and that then reflects on the agency....it can be vicious circle....and if a complaint about uncompensated overtime is raised, it gets uglier. In a perfect world (ain't gonna happen) the officer gets adequate compensation and sets his or her own schedule to meet district responsibilities. With the current staffing load, even that is highly improbable.

The bottom line in this whole exercise is lack of money. In this state, there needs to be an epiphany within the legislature and the Governor's office that our natural resources are a money maker for the state. They need adequate and stable funding. They also need to remember that Referendum 45 was passed by the voters to have a Commission that represents the residents of the state to run WDFW. The politicians have more important issues on their plate than making regular runs at dis-banding/re-structuring the agency and the Commission needs the courtesy of being confirmed so that they can do what they were selected for and appointed to do.

Some hard decisions are going to have to be made. There are core functions that are needed to effectively manage our fish and wildlife resources. I think that some of the services provided within an agency can probably be better handled by out-sourcing services to private businesses. Internally, the whole budget process needs to be re-evaluated. The RCWs and WACs need a tight review and quite likely a major re-write. Staffing needs and job responsibilities need to be evaluated. More generalists and fewer specialists might be one outcome. Re-structuring supervisory levels and increasing scope of responsibility should cut some positions. Early retirements might help some, too. We can't continue to operate under the status quo.

Did the survey.

One thing I would like to see is somehow getting users of WDFW access areas that are not fishing licensed, purchase parking permits.

Last summer I counted 53 vehicles at the Lewis Street Bridge access on the Skykomish one afternoon on a very hot day with many swimmers, dog walkers, sunbathers, etc. using the site.

Not one vehicle had a parking permit.

I talked with a Snohomish County Sheriff Department Sergeant who was there responding to a call about swimmers jumping off the highway bridge and asked him about citations for not having parking permits.

He said that since WDFW LE does citations by computer, that the County officers don't know if someone someone has already been cited, so they don't write citations.

Apparently fines from any citations written by WDFW LE, go to the County instead of
WDFW, so there is little incentive to write tickets, as all it does for WDFW LE is increase their workload.

I've talked to both County and WDFW LE officers about this.

I certainly don't begrudge dog walkers, bird watchers, folks taking their lunch break at the river, but I would like to see them help pay their share for use of these areas.

I politely tell these folks about parking permits and fines when I see them while I am using the area if I have the opportunity.

Most folks don't realize that they need a permit, even though there are posted signs.

I wouldn't advocate writing everyone up at least on a first time basis, but I would like to see policy worked out so fines would go they WDFW budget or be shared with the County and WDFW.

Hey Dave, do you also want to mention the funding source differences and how the Olympia Politicians are raping the agency by cutting the agency 20% when the General Funding source only represents 35% - 40%, Robertson/Pitman (Federal Excise Tax) 15% - 20%, and Our Licenses/Fees are 35% - 40%. They should only be cutting the General Fund Source 20%, NOT the entire funding sources.

That overhead mismanagement thing really rubs my azz raw, as an example that Dave mentioned, Financial Management (State Level Department) levies a Fee of 15% on all agencies transactions, yet provides NO FINANCIAL ANALYSIS SERVICES, so the agency hires Financial Analyst FTE in leau of hiring hatchery technicians or LEO's. And that 15% Overhead fee is on all transaction, not just general fund transactions. As an example, you foolishly go out last year and buy that $3.00 Crab Catch Record card, the Financial Management at the State Level collects $.45 of that $3.00 fee. It goes on ad nauseum.

Here's an idea that maybe is ripe for doing, raise all our Licenses and Fees to a point that a General Fund source is NOT needed. When an agency dips into or depends upon a General Fund, it also accepts all the General Funding un-necessary gouging. The idea here is to make the WDFW Self Sufficient/Self Financing agency. A classic example is my old employer, a Federal Agency that does not take a single dime of taxpayer money, the BPA. It actually works quite well and the PNW enjoys the lowest cost of electricity per kilowatt hour in North America.

The most important advantage of self financing is that the ONLY stakeholder would be us, the License/Fee buyers in the State. The tree huggers and granola snackers in Seattle could kiss our big hairy Butts.