Budget Office Studies Use Of Private Funding Fish And Game Uses State Money In Private Foundations

Gov. Phil Batt’s budget office is reviewing whether a private foundation should be spending state money to raise funds for the Idaho Fish and Game Department.

The state Fish and Game Department leases land from the taxexempt Fish and Wildlife foundation for a research site, and a Fish and Game employee spends 20 to 30 percent of her time on foundation business. Budget Director Dean Van Engelen says the foundation should maintain its distance from any agency of state government because it is beyond the control of elected officials.

“You’re commingling state money or federal money with a private foundation, which is not answerable to the state,” Van Engelen said.

Stephen Barton, administration chief with Fish and Game, is on the foundation’s board.

The special legislative committee overseeing the new performance auditing program considered an inquiry into the use of private funding sources not just in the Fish and Game Department but other state agencies as well. The biggest beneficiaries of such activity are the universities and Idaho Public Television. The Historical Society, the state School for the Deaf and Blind and the Parks and Recreation Department are among others with such associations. None of those are within government control.

Barton said the state gets more back than it puts into the Fish and Wildlife Foundation by tapping private fund-raising networks that government cannot. The foundation plans to raise $240,000 this year for department projects.

Van Engelen questions whether the foundation is trying to have it both ways. He said he is “making inquiries” into the matter, and will start by reviewing Fish and Game’s budgets for the past two years.

The department leases about 11 acres of land near Nampa from the foundation, using the site for its salmon and steelhead research unit. The foundation acquired the land and developed it at a cost of $165,000.

Fish and Game is paying $54,000 a year for the site under a five-year lease. The next cheapest alternative would have been leasing space in a Boise strip mall for $60,000 a year, Barton said.