HB 71: Game and Fish – License Fees 2
2007 General Session

Sponsor: Joint Interim Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee

HB 71 would have automatically adjusted all fees charged by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and landowner coupon payments to account for inflation, annually.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission would have used the implicit price deflator as published by the United States Department of Commerce as the index to determine the annual rate of increase or decrease in license fees, application and entry fees, fees for stamps, permits and tags, selling agent fees and landowner coupon payments paid by the Department.

The calculations and resulting fees would have been annually reported to the legislature and the governor.

It was estimated that over a three-year period, the Game and Fish Department would receive about $2.7 million in additional revenue from the automatic fee adjustments.

Supporters noted that about 75-80% of the Game and Fish Department’s annual budget comes from license fees, and since regular fee hikes are necessary to keep pace with increasing costs of wildlife management, believed it would be easier for everyone (the legislature, the Department, and the license-buying public) to have fees annually adjusted by a smaller amount than to have a larger fee hike go through the legislative process every four or five years. They believed the annual reporting requirements would ensure adequate accountability to the legislature.

Some legislators didn’t like the idea of losing the direct authority they now exercise of scrutinizing and acting on every specific fee hike.

The House passed HB 71, 33-24 (3 excused), but the Senate defeated the bill on first reading, 14-15 (1 excused). The votes listed below are the House third reading (final passage) vote, and the Senate Committee of the Whole (first reading) vote. A YES vote means the legislator approved of an automatic annual license fee adjustment. A NO vote means the legislator did not want license fees to be automatically adjusted annually.

Engrossed