Some oppose possible merge of hunting, fishing agencies

Consolidation would add 20 more workers than what both agencies have.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Concern over a political backlash from merging the state agencies that manage fishing and hunting will push back any such proposal until after the November election -- if one goes forward at all, the chairman of the House Game and Fisheries Committee predicted Tuesday.
"It's too controversial to consider just before an election," said Chairman Bruce Smith, R-York, who recently sent a memo to other legislators that noted vocal opposition has emerged to combining the Game Commission with the Fish and Boat Commission.
"I don't want members blindsided with people, especially in an election year, attacking them because of their position on a merger," said Smith, who has not taken a position on the subject.
Agencies' opposition
Both agencies are strongly opposed, and the Game Commission recently completed an internal study estimating a merger's startup costs at $11.5 million, followed by $5.3 million annually in additional expenses. Consolidation would require 20 more employees than the two separate commissions have, according to the Game Commission.
Smith called the study "silly" and inaccurate because it is not based on the cost of specific legislation. He said the Game Commission should not spend additional time and money fighting a proposal that remains in the formative stage.
The Game Commission thinks a merger would require it to spend more than $5 million to renovate and expand six regional offices and to replace the current system of home-based offices for game wardens with 30 barracks around the state -- a network similar to how the state police are deployed.
Other costs the agency has identified include more than $680,000 to put the new single agency's name on hats, clothing and badges; 1,800 signs to properly identify buildings, game preserves, and boat launches; and 27 additional four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Contradictory to report
Those findings contradict a report on consolidation issued in November by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee that projected annual savings of more than $5 million and a net reduction of 71 jobs, many of the cuts coming in waterways and wildlife conservation officers.
"What they're looking at is their turf, and it's a 100-year-plus tradition. We've got separate commissions and it's been that way since the 1880s," said John H. Rowe, a Legislative Budget and Finance analyst who worked on the study. Pennsylvania is the only state in the country with stand-alone agencies, one that oversees fish and aquatic resources and the other that manages wildlife and game.
As part of its campaign against the merger, the Game Commission printed 15,000 copies of a two-page statement urging the public to contact state legislators to fight it, distributing copies at a recent sportsmen's show in Harrisburg, commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said.
The document said Game is too different than Fish and Boat to be combined effectively, that the hoped-for savings will not materialize and that a reduction in services will inevitably result.