WDFW Puget Sound sport fishing advisory group

WDFW is currently seeking nominations for a 20 person advisory group regarding Puget Sound sport fishing.

Any PPers active members or have been in the past?

I am a member of the Puget Sound Sport Fish advisory group. I am also the chair of the Enforcement Advisory Group.

Not sure when WDFW upgraded their website but they now have a page listing advisory groups/committees:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/

For each of the listed entities there is a link to a page describing the group, its meeting records, and a list of current members.

That said, there is no listing for the Puget Sound Sport Fish Advisory Group. Nothing about the page being a work in progress.

What other groups/committees are there that need to be listed? And why aren't they on that page?

Took all of about 5 seconds...

http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/psrfef/

Enjoy!

PSRFE is legislatively mandated to provide guidance on what used to be the salmon stamp/blackmouth program. The PSRFE responsibilities are covered in RCW 77.105

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=77.105

The Puget Sound Sport Fish Advisory group advises the Dept primarily on issues relating to the Puget Sound salmon fisheries. A link will be added in the near future, I hope.

I think about half of the group members are frequent PP'ers, including myself.

As Bushbear has confirmed the PSRFEF is a different group as determined before I posted.

And while I am on the subject I will opine that any dedicated account in existence or contemplated needs to have legislatively mandated citizen oversight via an advisory group/committee plus more stringent direction as to how dedicated funds may be spent - not just types of expenditures but some limitations on the percentages such that not all monies are spent on only one of the approved activities.

....and percentages aren't skimmed off the top of the dedicated funds to fund other portions of government oversight of the funds.....

Or charge their 12% and provide no tangible benefit.....

Larry, are you sure WDFW's skim is only 12%? I have checked and I can get genetic samples run by them for $50 a pop or elsewhere for $10.

I was referring to the State agency that sucks a sizeable chunk (I think the 12% is accurate) - not what WDFW may use for administrative functions which may or may not be allowed depending on the language in the authorizing legislation. Bushbear may have more details at his finger tips. BB??

And since we are on the topic of advisory groups each of their meetings should have minutes produced and approved by the group with a copy going to the Commission. There have been instances where dialog/recommendations from the group's citizen members haven't made it into the subsequent report to the Commission having gone through one or more layers of Staff "adjustments."

In my experience, as a taker of minutes at meeting, is that WDFW prefers not to have written minutes (ask Rivrguy) as an historical record just seems to create problems when looks back at was said, agreed-to, or committed to.

You wouldn't be implying an integrity problem would you? Nah....

Nah, nothing like that.

As I recall, the amount can vary between 10% and 15% give or take. The bottom line is that it comes off the top and reduces the amount available for the program.

I'd like to think that the folks running the program have a basic understanding of budgets and can do their own book-keeping without having to fund another arm of state government to "administer" the funds.

One might want to ask one's legislators exactly what service that budget group performs on a dedicated account like the Puget Sound crab endorsement fund. If that fund collects roughly $2 million/year that means about $250K goes to the budget folks. And for what? To the best of my knowledge they don't audit those accounts nor generate an audit report (that would be the SAO).

And then there are the CR endorsement fund and the PS recreational fishing enhancement fund (formerly blackmouth stamp) with the same losses.

It would seem that the advisory group oversight alone should be sufficient, less costly, and provide stakeholders with a more credible result.

Those overhead funds are sucked out by WDFW for administration.

Written minutes and recording a meeting are avoided if possible. Now we got the minutes going but lord the trauma when they were recorded then transcribed to print. Bottom line is the agency has always tried to not get meetings minutes or whatever other than to sanitize them to the point of not being recognizable. CM did some once for the locals working with the agency when he was staff ( did many in reality ) and he tried to capture it without getting his rear in a sling. Agency speak was " a spirted conversation took place " CM chose instead to go forth with something similar to " d--- & others expressed extreme dissatisfaction .... loudly " Same issue just one is sanitized.

Just out of curiosity, who can run samples for $10 a pop? You can answer in a pm if you wish.

I don't know if it was as low as 10$ but there's a place in Canada that will run them for ~14$ a sample.

A correction/clarification is needed in regards to the "skim" from dedicated funds. I was under the understanding that the Office of Finance and Management was the agency taking the money. I was wrong. I rec'd the following information this afternoon:

"The indirect figures shown below (also sometimes referenced as proportionate administrative funds/costs), represents the portion of costs needed from our dedicated accounts to support administrative functions in the Business Services Program within WDFW. This indirect rate (proportionate administrative funds/costs) is applied to all of our dedicated accounts."

For the PSRFE fund, it amounts to 12% ($318,972) for the 2015/16 biennium budget amount of $2,656,030 which monies come from the old salmon stamp fee ($10) that is now included in your saltwater license purchase.

The reason it's cheap is because the Canadian lab doesn't have baselines for every river in Washington State. If you send them a coho sample from Puget Sound they can only tell you it is from Puget Sound, not the basin it originated from like the WDFW lab is able to do. If doing a stock composition of harvest or some other analysis that needs detail, it would be fairly worthless to know that every fish was only from Puget Sound.

Looks like I misunderstood who was sucking a sizeable portion of the "dedicated" funds from those accounts. Bushbear also has addressed that it is going to WDFW rather than the budget agency. Guess that is better - but still not great. $300+K would buy a lot of fish food.

And does the legislation establishing those accounts include/allow WDFW's administrative costs?