The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is increasing its budget by more than 8%, the majority of the increase going to employee wage increases in an attempt to retain the department's talent pool.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department's budget proposal is an increase over last year's $100 million by about 8.3% with a new ask for 2027 of $108.5 million, marking the largest increase in years as the department has been running fairly stagnant budgets for the past decade.

Increased salaries were responsible for the largest contributor to the increased preliminary budget proposal in front of the commission. The department asked for $4.8 million (about 60% of the approximate $8.3 million increase) for salary increases for its more than 400 full-time employees. Maintaining employees has been hard in recent years as many competing federal and state agencies offer higher pay and better benefits.

The budget is about 98% of expected revenue of $112.5 million. District 4 Commissioner Rusty Bell, the CEO of Energy Capital Economic Development in Gillette and experienced in annual budgets, challenged Game and Fish Wyoming Game and Fish Chief Financial Officer Meredith Wood about the dangers of having such a slim margin of error in projected revenue.

"I have a little bit of experience in some county budgeting, and some in this, but for us to be allocated at 98%, that's a tight budget. This is an extremely ... tight budget," Bell said.

Wood replied, telling the commission she has been very careful in her proposal.

“You’re 100% correct. This is very tight. I do also work hard to ensure the projections are conservative, so I’m not under-estimating,” she said.

The department has done well since the state cut off general funding in 2017, saving millions for use in the operating budget in case of emergencies. Since then, the department has functioned essentially as a business, heavily reliant on sales of products to sportspersons rather than legislative general fund appropriations.

Sportsmen and women pay for about 92% of the department’s budget through sales of licenses, fees and tax revenue from the sale of hunting and angling equipment and fuel. But it’s not easy to cover everything.

Future revenue streams

There are very few options for increased revenue for the department without legislative approval. Bell initially made a motion to pass the preliminary budget but not give approval for moving ahead on contracts that need to be signed by July 1. However, the final vote on the budget doesn’t happen until July 14-15 in Sheridan.

After Wood explained that the timing for the more than 1,000 contracts, the part of the motion limiting the department was stuck and, instead, the department will develop a meeting to explain the entire contract process to the commission for possible future changes in the process.

One future revenue stream the department can change without legislative approval is the price nonresidents pay for preference points. The commission could raise preference point costs to $75 for antelope deer and elk, which would mean raising antelope preference points by $44, deer by $34 and elk by $23, without legislative approval, Wood said at the April commission meeting after Bell asked her to bring more information on possible revenue streams after the March meeting.

If the commission raised prices to the maximum allowed, they could increase revenue for preference points from about $21 million to $36 million, realizing an additional $15 million in revenue, greater than the entire 2027 increase.

Bell also inquired about nonconsumptive user fees — for folks like wildlife watchers, hikers, equine enthusiasts, and other resource users not necessarily buying fishing and hunting licenses. He also wondered how tourism and outdoor sports participants benefit from the work of the commission, yet don’t contribute to the bottom line.

“We’re the agency that takes care of [wildlife and habitat], but we see nothing for that,” Bell said. “I think we’re going to have to start thinking outside the box.”

Budget details

The department’s fixed expenses include $2 million for mandatory damage claims, not to mention utilities, taxes, insurance, landowner tags, game warden retirement and other expenses totaling about $68 million. That leaves just about $40 million for everything else; “including infrastructure, maintenance, travel, flights, habitat, work, all of our temporary employees, Access Yes, AIS, everything else,” Wood said.

At the same time the department has been keeping the budget flat prior to this year’s increase, inflation has challenged the department at every step. Since 2008, inflation is up 67.5%. Just since 2020, inflation is up over 35%.

“We’re facing with some pretty big numbers,” Wood said.

With quickly increasing transportation costs, due significantly to the war in Iran, the department will need to look deeper to make budget. They also have three one-time expenditures that will cost the department an extra $2 million.

“I don’t suspect we’re going to have much, if any, left,” Wood told the commission.