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Originally Posted by ivanputski
general fund!!! You didnt reeeeally think they went through all this trouble to implement this just so you could have a better quality of fishing did you??? Someone just realized that there were tens of thousands of fishermen out there doing something for free
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnySaxatilis
bingo
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Actually, it doesn't go to the general fund. And that may be why the EP aren't getting any of the funds yet. The federal legislation that required licensing/registration specifically prohibits co-mingling license revenues with any other state funds. States are required to keep those funds in a dedicated account, under penalty of forfeiting their matching funds that they get from the Wallop-Breaux federal excise tax on fishing goods. If the state's EPs get paid out of the same fund as, say, the State Police, and state corrections officers, the license fees can't go to them, even though "enforcement" is an allowed use of the funds under federal law. The legislature has to act to enable DMF to send a portion of the license fees directly to the EP, if they get paid out of the general fund.
Since I don't know for sure whether EP funding comes out of the general fund, or from the overall F&W revenues taken in, I can't say for certain whether this catch-22 is why they're not getting the proceeds that are supposed to go towards enforcement. But, unlike many here, I have done my homework on the licensing law, and I know that the proceeds aren't going into the general fund. And in fact, over the years, not a single cent of FW and hunting/sportsmen licenses has ever gone into the general fund. By law those proceeds are kept in a dedicated fund, and any governor who has tried to glom onto them has been shot down by the courts. Mitt was the last one who tried it.