BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
Last year, hoping to increase game warden presence in Washington, WDFW linked a $3.8 million funding request for fiscal year 2026 to Governor Ferguson’s $100 million plan to hire more law enforcement personnel around the state.
Money would have gone toward bringing back two recently cut marine officer positions, fill five vacancies and add a handful of new officers in the coming fiscal year, “significantly improving coverage and reducing response times for calls for service.”
Fast forward to the last two weeks of this year’s short legislative session, and the reality is likely to be cuts instead for WDFW’s enforcement division.
As news stories out today report that not a single officer has been hired under the governor’s ballyhooed plan, in Olympia, supplemental operating budget proposals from the Democrat-controlled House and Senate would both lead to a reduction in fish and wildlife officer positions – as many as 13 under the lower chamber’s proposal, according to WDFW.
Agency officials are lobbying state representatives to reduce the number of lost positions, but between that and the Senate’s proposal, WDFW says it is looking at a “further loss of 10 percent of law enforcement positions.”
That’s according to an all-staff midsession update emailed yesterday by Morgan Stinson, WDFW chief financial officer.
It was important enough for Stinson to specifically call out the cuts as one of “two areas contrary to WDFW and our partners’ priorities,” the other being maintaining recreation lands.
On that lands front, both the Senate and House propose to reduce how much money is allocated for WDFW water access sites, restrooms, grounds and facilities, among other properties, the Senate by $2 million a year from 2023-25 budget levels, the House by $800,000 from that same benchmark.
“Our tribal partners have pointed out that how we manage our lands directly impacts them and their treaty rights,” Stinson wrote to staff. “Unfortunately, in these proposals we see a loss of funding for recent acquisitions and more reductions in our ability to maintain existing Department-managed lands. This immediately worsens the problems we and our tribal partners would seek to prevent, and compounds with the drop in enforcement protections of state lands.”
Elsewhere, the Senate proposes to cut General Fund support for monitoring fishery harvests, fish migration and hatchery production by 10 percent, or $1.5 million a year, while the House proposes cutting $700,000.
Similar cuts last year cost Skagit-Sauk steelheaders a 2026 season; given the budget situation, WDFW didn’t even bother putting in a funding request to support a 2027 fishery.
Both chambers of the legislature also look to whittle away at WDFW’s big biodiversity funding win of a few years ago, with the Senate chopping $2 million from the $14 million base starting in the 2027 fiscal year, the House half that.
There are also proposed cuts to administrative functions as General Fund dollars continue to be pulled out of the agency – last year’s license fee increases merely replaced like amounts of lost GF-state funding.
“We don’t yet know how or if these proposed budgets will affect staffing levels, and we are committed to mitigating staff impacts. The Executive Management Team will continue to work with legislative leaders to find solutions to address needs in the next days and weeks,” Stinson told WDFW staffers.
While the state budget picture is tight with – so far – few special provisos folded into supplemental proposals, there are a few WDFW-related ones that could receive funding.
The Senate proposal funds $61,000 to implement the wildlife passage coordination bill, ESSB 5203, and $350,000 for a fisheries analysis as part of the Lower Snake River Recreation Study, which lost federal funding as a result of the US Government’s withdrawal from the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last year.
However, there does not appear to be any surprise state money for continued Lake Washington predator suppression to aid salmon smolt outmigration, despite the issue receiving a Senate committee work session last month.
As for Capital Budget proposals, the House ponies up $50,000 to start the process of relocating the Bob Oke Game Farm, which raises ringnecks for hunting at release sites but which has a wee bit of a pheasant poop problem impacting Centralia-area groundwater.
And the Senate provides $220,000 to begin demolition of old buildings at WDFW’s Snow Creek property in the western Strait of Juan de Fuca, while the House directs the agency to use “existing appropriations” for the same purpose. Plans eventually call for a rebuilt rail boat launch, trailer parking and camping and RV sites.
WDFW’s Stinson said his agency has reviewed all the budget proposals and is working on a “list of concerns” to send back to lawmakers as they begin the process of merging the spending plans into something that can pass the legislature by the scheduled end of the session, March 12.
Governor Ferguson then will receive the budgets to sign or veto in part in April.
