Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - May/June 2013 - 2

Straight

TALK
by John A. Arway

Executive Director
Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission

Opportunities

photo-Rhonda Race

In my last column, I discussed the fiscal challenges that
lie ahead of us once payment comes due in four years for
employee pension costs ($5.5 million), health care and
other benefits ($920 thousand) and salaries and wages
($2.0 million). Add another $1 million, give or take, for
basic infrastructure costs, and the simple math shows that
we need to find over $9 million in the next four years to
balance the impact these increased costs will have to our
operations and your fishing and boating activities. That is
why I call our dilemma our fiscal slope, since we have time
to work on solutions or better stated—opportunities.
Although many in state government cannot or perhaps
will not look ahead to plan for these extra costs, Governor
Corbett recognizes that “Pennsylvania has to take action
now to address its growing pension crisis. If we don’t, the
severely escalating costs of the system will engulf more and
more of our state budget.” These costs are being passed
down to individual agencies, and we must prepare for
them by either cutting costs or reallocating spending or
increasing revenues. I discussed the impact the spending
cuts would have on our programs and would now like
to turn your attention to the revenue
opportunities that could be created to either
partially or completely take care of these
additional costs.
I always hear that it is never a good
time to try to find new revenue, no matter
if times are good or bad. In good times,
agencies grow and prosper like other
parts of government did throughout
the 1990s, but the Pennsylvania Fish &
Boat Commission (PFBC) has always

lived within our means, and we continue to not spend
more than we earn. We take pride in how we manage
angler and boater dollars and are committed to dealing
with these new challenges by not advocating a general
license increase and losing participation but by finding
alternative funding sources to offset the increased costs
that we are facing.
So, how can we get creative and pay for these
additional costs while providing the same goods and
services that our resources and our resource users,
our anglers, boaters and conservationists, have come
to expect? On the opposite page is a list of ideas with
revenue estimates for some of our options.
This table represents the ideas with the greatest
potential for generating new funding to offset the costs
now being passed on to our agency. We have consistently
used the user pay/user benefit model and have
traditionally raised user fees to generate revenues to pay
our bills. This model should not be used today since you,
the anglers and boaters, and the agency had no vote in
how these costs were created. They were created by others
who used the funding for other things. Since PFBC does
not receive any general fund money, the proposed costs
are disproportionate to any benefits we may have received
through Growing Greener, H2O PA and other general
fund programs.
You will find that most of the funding opportunities
in this table will require legislative action and the
Governor’s approval. Our Board of Commissioners, staff
and I truly see this as an opportunity to show how we
can work together to minimize the impact of these costs
to a multi-billion dollar fishing and boating enterprise
in our Commonwealth. We will continue to work with
the current administration and our legislative partners
on the opportunities that they will support. I recently
met with some members and their staff at a legislative
luncheon in Emporium and introduced them to my

Pictured are (left to right) Commissioner
William J. Sabatose; Mark Adams,
Staff Representative for Senator Joseph
Scarnati; Representative Matt Gabler;
Representative Martin Causer; PFBC
Executive Director John A. Arway and
Xander Arway-McClusik.

2

Pennsylvania Angler & Boater • May/June 2013

PFBC Facebook: PaFishandBoat
Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - May/June 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - May/June 2013
