AUGUSTA – Steve Curtis and Sandy Ritchie are worried about funding needed to maintain both Maine’s state parks and the Maine Endangered Species Program. Support money has dwindled due to budget cuts.
They’re also fretting the Legislature’s acceptance of new license plate designs this winter.
Additionally, Ritchie, a wildlife planner with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, worries about the moving of a tax donation box from the state income tax form to a supplemental tax form.
Both items curbed funding and could lead to layoffs in the wildlife department, Ritchie said.
Sales of registration plates featuring the chickadee, a revamped lobster and University of Maine designs have cut into sales of loon conservation plates, which were introduced in 1994.
People buying loon plates pay a $15 annual renewal fee. Of that $5.60 goes into an Inland Fisheries and Wildlife special interest-bearing account. It can only be spent on the conservation of Maine’s endangered and nongame species.
The remaining $8.40 goes to the state Bureau of Parks and Lands.
“That was like a godsend to us,” said Curtis, a regional bureau manager.
“We have an $80 million infrastructure of state parks, and we need to continually do upkeep and maintenance work in them. Recent budget cuts have us leaning heavily on loon plate sales,” he said Friday afternoon.
Loon plate sales rose from nearly 60,000 in 1994 to more than 110,000 in 1998, providing the wildlife department with up to $617,000 annually for nongame and endangered wildlife projects.
Nationally, Maine has one of the highest participation rates for conservation registration plates. About 13 percent of eligible vehicles are registered with loon plates.
Curtis said the parks and lands bureau received $926,227 in 1998 from the sale of loon plates.
Then in July 1999, the Legislature replaced the red lobster plate with a new general issue chickadee plate.
“The state’s switch from the rather ugly lobster plate to the rather pretty chickadee plate really hurt us,” Ritchie said.
Loon plate sales dropped 20 percent when chickadee plates were issued in 1999, she said.
From 1999 to 2000, the fish and wildlife department’s income of $569,610 from the sale of 101,716 conservation plates fell to $499,486 for 89,194 plates.
A relocated state income tax check-off has also factored in the loss of funding for Maine’s Endangered Species program.
In 1983, the Maine Endangered and Nongame Wildlife Fund was created by the addition of a check-off option to the state income tax form.
The resulting “generous response” from Maine residents established the Endangered Species Program, Ritchie said.
In 1984, the wildlife fund received $115,794 from 25,322 givers. Donations averaged $4.57 per person.
Except for limited federal money, for 10 years contributions from the “chickadee check-off” were the only source of funding for endangered species conservation.
In 1997, the fund received $77,511 from 8,686 givers. Donations averaged $8.92 per person.
Then in 1998 the state moved the chickadee check-off from the primary tax form to a supplemental form. Income dropped by 40 to 50 percent, falling to $48,189 from 4,065 givers.
Increased average donations have alleviated some of the loss, going up steadily from $4 to $5 in the 1980s to $13.29 in 2001.
“We have people in our agency who depend on the license sales for their job positions. So it’s very important to us. That’s one reason why we’ve started an initiative to promote the loon license,” she added.
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