Editorial-Opinion November 2005

On page 38 of this issue you will find a letter from DNR Commissioner Noel Holcomb responding to an article that appeared in the October issue of GON critical of the funding recommendations made by the DNR.

When you read the letter, you will notice a personal nature to it. That is a recognition of a long professional relationship between Noel and I. Years ago, when Noel was an area manager for an island WMA, he dressed a deer for me. Noel recently was appointed to be Commissioner of DNR by Gov. Sonny Perdue. When Noel was named the new DNR Commissioner, I and the staff here at GON cheered. It is good to have a Commissioner who understands the issues of sportsmen and wildlife management as well as Noel does. Noel’s career of service to Georgia’s sportsmen is one which he can be proud.

So I appreciate the personal tone of his letter. To the extent to which Noel took personally the content of the article, I apologize for suggesting Noel personally or intentionally seeks to slight sportsmen. I don’t believe that is the case.

My concern is the long view of a steady decline and erosion in sportsmen’s programming. This decline transcends Noel’s tenure as Commissioner. What is correct in its timing is that this is the first opportunity to restore some important people and programs to sportsmen — people and programs that were lost to budget cuts when times were lean.

I wish his letter had addressed the points in the article directly. I do disagree with the direction DNR has been taking for some time, not just on Noel’s watch.

Noel did make some points that bear more scrutiny on my part.

In the second paragraph of Noel’s letter, he says I am wrong about $8 million going to what I have dubbed non-sporting programs and points to the audit by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. For the record, I have not reviewed the audit Noel mentions, but I will familiarize myself with it. I understand the relationship between state dollars used for matching funds and federal dollars. The cut of some $700,000 the WMA dollars selected by the DNR Board understates lost revenue because there would be a corresponding loss of federal funds of more than $380,000. So the DNR cut to sportsmen’s programs is not $700,000 but over $1 million.

But I ask Noel and WRD to look again at what we are seeing. Our concerns about how decisions are made regarding sportsmen’s dollars are long standing and are chronicled in the article following Noel’s response. They are not limited to concerns about this current Commissioner or this current WRD Director. Instead, our objection is to the long-term drift of the agency that is allowing sportsmen programs to wither and decay.

In our October report, GON never claimed that sportsmen’s dollars were used to construct the facility at Charlie Elliott. Nor do we criticize outdoor and wildlife education. Indeed, when I addressed back in April the regional supervisor’s of WRD, I criticized the division for not creating an educational section.

But it is true that a WRD Game Management wildlife biologist was the primary overseer of that construction and, while he is a great guy and he worked hard, he is trained and skilled to do work with wildlife. I don’t think DNR would support the notion of hiring civil engineers and architects to oversee turkey and quail restoration, but they did use a wildlife biologist to oversee the construction at Charlie Elliott.

The Commissioner’s response also fails to address the primary concern of the article; that traditional WRD programs were disproportionately identified for cuts compared to the rest of the agencies under DNR administration.

No personnel were identified as potential cuts in Environmental Protection Division, no cuts in Coastal Resources, everyone in the Commissioner’s office budget of more than $9 million stays, and every other part of the DNR agency except two people in Parks are safe.

Contrast that record to the Board’s decision regarding sportsmen’s programs. Sportsmen account for about 20 percent of the state funding to DNR. Their thanks is to have their programs nominated to suffer 16 personnel cuts, 12 in game management, three rangers and one fisheries worker.

I ask my friend Noel to explain this disproportionate treatment.