To the editor,

In the Sept. 3, 2025, Pierce County Journal, State Sen. Rob Stafsholt provided a nuanced partisan summary of the recently released DNR audit that he and other legislators requested to make the case for deleting Gov. Evers' budget that increased hunting and fishing license fees to provide additional funding for the DNR. Stafsholt parses the information to make the case that the audit found that hunters and fishers were not getting their fair share of the DNR budget. He said the audit supports his claim that the Fish and Wildlife account does not need fee increases and that the DNR has "...plenty of room to make cuts."  

To the contrary, the audit indicates judicious budgeting by the DNR, and the funding of programs for hunting and fishing related needs is equitable to license fee contribution. For example, according to Tom Eisele's reporting in the Sept. 5, 2025 Wisconsin Outdoor News (WON), the Legislative Audit Committee (LAB) only recommended procedural changes and found no significant errors in the DNR 's budgeting expenditures.

Stafsholt indicated that of the $92 million in state revenues only 49.8% of the budget "primarily benefits sportsmen." However, since license fees only account for 49.5% of state revenues, according to the LAB, that seems equitable. 26.9% of state revenue comes from Wisconsin's share of federal funds under the Pittman-Robertson and Dingel-Johnson Acts which is funded by an assessment on the sales of many sporting goods besides those directly used by license holders.

According to Wisconsin Wildlife Federation (WWF) executive Cory Kamrowski, the 10.3% DNR administration cost that Stafsholt laments is "well under" the legislative administrative advisory cost target of 16%. The DNR should be praised for that not critiqued. The WWF concluded that only .03% or about $303.1K of the DNR's expenditure in fiscal 2023-24 was "questionable." (Ironically, some of that expenditure was part of costs related to legislative requests similar to the recent audit).  

In regard to Stafsholt's claims that the license fee increase proposals were "staggering" and they caught the public "off guard" and there is "plenty of room" for cuts, the sporting public should consider this. The license fee increases that Evers proposed were less than the aggregate inflation rate since the last increase in 2005, meaning licenses would still be a bargain. Two of the premiere sporting organizations in the state, Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited and most other such organizations have called for fee increases for the past decade and according to polling the general sporting public concurs. As for more cutting, DNR Budget Director Maggie Hunter reports that 20 full time positions will be cut this year, 40 were cut in the last budget, and that since 2003, there are 500 fewer DNR positions. Add to that, DOGE running amuck cutting federal grant funds and the DNR budget is frankly on life support, and Stafsholt and the GOP Madison elites are standing on the breathing tube.

Finally, the DNR's mission is far greater than wildlife management as it is charged with protecting the public as whole from environmental degradation. Under funding in one area impacts the mission as a whole. More comprehensive information on this matter can be found in the Sept. 5 WON issue from which the above factual information was obtained.

Ron Ginsbach 

Elmwood