[Conservation Fund Advisory Board Member]\u2008Chairman Jason Kemper said he has no philosophical issue with at least some of the [Environmental Conservation Officer] salaries and benefits being paid for by the Conservation Fund.<\/p>\n
But the move comes at a time when numerous staff shortages exist within DEC’s Bureau of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources – positions that DEC has been unable to receive permission from the state budget office to fill.<\/p>\n
“The CFAB fully appreciates what the ECOs do for the sporting community and believe the sportsmen should be responsible for funding some of those positions,”\u2008Kemper said.<\/p>\n
“With that being said, it is very frustrating to work for over a year trying to fill minimal vacant positions within the division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources and not be able to make any progress on that, and with a stroke of the pen 20 ECOs totaling more than $500,000 for the remainder of 2010 and a projected $1.5 million for 2011 can be added to the Conservation Fund without anyone notifying the board.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This debate comes at a time when DEC faces close scrutiny for its spending and staff levels, and environmentalists are also concerned about “raids” on the funds typically used to acquire new open space.<\/p>\n
What do you think?\u00a0 Is this a fair way to shift the cash around in the middle of economic crisis, or are hunters and fishers getting zinged?<\/p>\n
(Hat tip for noticing this story first goes to Adirondack Almanack.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State officials are using more cash generated by hunting and fishing licenses to pay salaries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[884,48,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262\/revisions\/5263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}