{"id":12475,"date":"2024-08-31T05:03:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T05:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12475"},"modified":"2024-08-31T05:05:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T05:05:07","slug":"audit-ordered-for-wisconsin-fish-and-wildlife-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12475","title":{"rendered":"Audit Ordered for Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Account"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/audit-ordered-for-wisconsin-fish-and-wildlife-account\/tcsquare\/2024\/08\/31\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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Wisconsin is going to look and see if the money that hunters and fisherman spend to hunt and fish is actually going for hunting and fishing.<\/p>\n

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee on Thursday ordered an audit of the state\u2019s Fish and Wildlife Account.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the board, hunters and anglers are concerned. These funds come from license fees & taxes on sporting goods and are supposed to be used on projects that benefit fishing and hunting across the state,\u201d Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, said. \u201cWe need a closer look at DNR\u2019s handling of these funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Department of Natural Resources has a history of dipping into the Fish and Wildlife account.<\/p>\n

Wimberger said that a 2006 audit \u201cfound $1.6 million in expenditures that had no direct benefit to hunters or anglers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another audit in 1998 found DNR was using the Fish and Wildlife Fund to pay for $11.6 million in departmental overhead. That led to a state law that capped how much money could be spent from the Fish and Wildlife Fund.<\/p>\n

Still, Wimberger said the DNR continues to spend the fees that hunters and fishermen pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State\u2019s most recent budget, the 2023-2025 Biennial Budget Act, assisted DNR in balancing the fund with a one-time transfer of $25 million from the Forestry Account to the Fish and Wildlife Account,\u201d Wimberger added in a statement.<\/p>\n

Luke Hilgemann, the executive director at the hunting group the International Order of T. Roosevelt, told The Center Square hunters pay a lot to maintain Wisconsin\u2019s outdoor opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DNR estimates collecting $62 million from license fees in 2026. Resident deer licenses are $24 for archery and $24 for guns. Resident Fishing licenses are $20,\u201d Hilgemann said. \u201cWhen you match this with the federal excise taxes hunters and anglers pay on the purchase of our products through programs like Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson, outdoorsmen pay over $100 million annually for conservation-related programs in Wisconsin.\u201d<\/p>\n

He too wants an audit, again to make sure that the money hunters and fishermen are paying goes for hunting and fishing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunters and anglers are happy to support conservation efforts with our dollars but we need accountability to ensure those dollars are being spent on conservation-related projects and not being used by the DNR to pad their budgets in other areas or grow the bureaucracy on the backs of hunters and anglers,\u201d Hilgemann added. \u201cThe agency claims an anticipated shortfall of $16 million in 2026, but before we have any conversation about fee increases, we need full accountability for the dollars we currently entrust with the DNR.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Benjamin Yount is a contributor at The Center Square<\/a>.
\nPhoto \u201cHunting\u201d by Rhett Noonan<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Audit Ordered for Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Account<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/audit-ordered-for-wisconsin-fish-and-wildlife-account\/tcsquare\/2024\/08\/31\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 Wisconsin is going to look…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12476,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475\/revisions\/12476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}