ODFW News

Wright Angle · 09-10-2002, 03:23 PM

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Contact: Ann Snyder (503) 872-5264 x5363
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us Fax: (503) 872-5700

For Immediate Release Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Oregon State Police reduce fish and wildlife enforcement services due to state budget shortfall

PORTLAND - Five Oregon State Police officers assigned to provide fish and wildlife enforcement services for the state of Oregon are among the more than 100 sworn officers who have received layoff notices due to the state's budget shortfall, ODFW and OSP announced today.

Two of the five officers are assigned to Albany and Fossil for general fish and wildlife enforcement duties. The other three officers provide commercial fishery enforcement services for the Astoria, Newport and Portland areas.

"The work these officers do for Oregon is very valuable, and it is supported by Oregon's anglers and hunters," said ODFW Director Lindsay Ball. "Unfortunately, OSP is forced to find ways to reduce General Fund expenditures, and these five positions make up part of those reductions."

A total of 115 current sworn officers make up the OSP Fish and Wildlife Division. Of those, 21 positions are supported by General Fund monies. Sixty-four are supported by an $11.5 million biennial contribution from ODFW. The remaining 30 positions are funded through a combination of lottery dollars and other state and federal monies.

These layoffs as well as other budget reductions are designed to make up the state's General Fund budget shortfall in the current 2001-2003 biennium.

Earlier this year ODFW held a series of town hall meetings to discuss hunting and angling fees for the 2003-2005 biennium. Those fees, which are Other Funds, make up nearly half of the department's budget, but do not help support General Fund programs. Most participants in those meetings developed a list of four key services they support. Those services were hatchery production, field biologist services, fish and wildlife enforcement, and landowner services.

The OSP Fish and Wildlife Division is the single enforcement entity designated by law to protect fish and wildlife resources.

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TideRunner · 09-10-2002, 03:30 PM

Yeah, like they don't write tickets that cover their daily wages............

FM2 · 09-10-2002, 03:32 PM

shhhhhh! don't want to inform the wrong side about this

TheRogue · 09-10-2002, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Yeah, like they don't write tickets that cover their daily wages............

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">My guess is they could more than cover their own wages, on the amount of problems we all see regularly, except for the fact that most law enforcement officers almost split their time between patrol and required paperwork.

DF · 09-10-2002, 04:08 PM

TideRunner
you shouldn't worry, if your not doing anything ILLEGAL you wont get a ticket...duh.

I am personally pro law enforcement
It angers me that they are laying off that many officers.
So when you call and report snaggers who's going to come to your call?

24 on/ 48 off · 09-10-2002, 04:16 PM

My sentiments exactly...

Do we NOT want them to enforce game laws?

--spud-- :smile:

Spoiled Daddy · 09-10-2002, 04:18 PM

The game officers may write the tickets, but they have no control over what happens in court and the fines that are set by the judges.

Without enforcement, there are going to be some really bad game hogs out there who can and will damage our fish stocks and land animals alike.

Again, if you are fearing getting a ticket, you are riding the fence or are crossing over all together. This is a pretty simple theory... Follow the rules, whether you like them or not, and you have nothing to worry about!

SD

TideRunner · 09-10-2002, 05:59 PM

Maybe I should have wrote a book to clarify my statement..............

Drummer dude..........People like me call in on people fishing illegally and now there are less officers to respond to incidents......duh........read between the lines.

Slayer · 09-10-2002, 06:02 PM

I bet you no politicains will loose there jobs or have a cut in pay or benefits! These so caled lawmaker are only making laws that fill their pockets or those who are reallly paying them

FM2 · 09-10-2002, 06:41 PM

So people that do the illegal activities, how many get the ODFW news letter, how many read the Oregonian, how many keep up with what the law is doing!

My point is I get the news letter and thought about posting it but my maturity says I shouldn't because some people who come here just to lurk, and there are more than you think, will read there is less enforcement so they will tell there buddies who might already be doing illegal activities that now guess what...less eforcement, go for it.

[ 09-10-2002, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: FM2 ]

09-10-2002, 06:45 PM

Five less productive workers. How many less paper shuffling crats?

OceanBlue · 09-10-2002, 06:55 PM

It is a sad, sad thing whenever we cut off our nose to spite our face.

I understand that cuts need to be made, but darn it all to heck and back, why can't they find more efficient ways of doing things. I'm reminded of the MANY federal and state agencies that all seem to do the same thing. I went looking for information on ... oh... I think it was Halibut regulations. 2 or 3 different web pages on 2 or 3 different sites for Oregon alone... and none of them were in synch.

How about ONE website for regulations. ONE place to maintain information. ONE hosting/maintenance/account management/data source fee? How about outsourcing (if they don't) and consolidating (which obviously doesn't happen) ??? But instead of finding efficiencies, taxes get raised, enforcement gets reduced, regulations increase, resource management gets cut back.

Talk about discouraging!