Finding new ways to pay the bills at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, especially if some of the costs may be passed on to those who don’t hunt, fish or trap, is a perennial issue. It has come up this year as lawmakers look for ways to raise more money to fund the warden service. For the short term, a license fee increase may be inevitable; long-range, lawmakers must find a way to fulfill a past commitment to cover a larger portion of the department’s expenditures from the General Fund.

The warden service is facing a $540,000 shortfall in the next fiscal year, prompting the service to ask wardens to limit their driving to 60 miles per day. To raise more money for the service and its parent department, Rep. David Richardson, R-Carmel, has proposed to raise resident hunting, trapping and fishing license fees by $2 a year. Nonresident licenses would increase by $4.

While sportsmen groups are not necessarily opposed to the fee increases, they are again pushing for more of IF&W’s money to come from sources beyond hunters and fishermen.

“We need to reprioritize the work of the warden service and make sure that they are giving sportsmen what they are paying for,” George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine said at a public hearing on Rep. Richardson’s bill, LD 2308.

A study done during the administration of former Gov. Angus King found that about 18 percent of the warden service’s budget was devoted to nonhunters, mostly for search and rescue operations (naturally, there have been proposals to have those rescued foot the bill). A proposal to have 18 percent of IF&W’s funding come from the state’s General Fund resulted. It was passed by the Legislature in 2003.

Immediately, money was short and there was little progress toward the 18 percent goal. Currently, about 10 percent of the department’s budget comes from the General Fund.

The best way to ensure that IF&W is not viewed as an agency that caters to hunters and fishermen is to fund more of its operations from the General Fund. If more of its funding comes from other sources, however, sportsmen must accept that their voice will be diminished and that calls for efficiency among the state’s natural resource agencies must be heeded.

The mission of the department is to “ensure that all species of wildlife and aquatic resources in the State of Maine are maintained and perpetuated for their intrinsic and ecological values, for their economic contribution, and for their recreational, scientific and educational use by the people of the State,” according to its Web site.

Such a broad mission should be accompanied by a broader source of funding.