Vermont Fish and Wildlife seeks $31.3M for FY26, says funding model needs overhaul

Andrea Shorpsley, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb. 21 that the department’s fiscal year 2026 request is just under $31.3 million, a net increase of about $1 million from FY25. She said the department will use a mix of general fund, federal, and special funds to cover salary and operating costs and will take $225,000 from the Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund this year to help close a budget gap.

Shorpsley said the department employs about 140 full‑time staff, including 42 in the warden service, and is organized into five divisions: administration, wildlife, fish, wardens, and outreach. She told the committee that salaries and benefits make up nearly 70% of the department’s budget, with internal service funds (insurance, workers’ comp, HR, agency digital services) at roughly 8%, leaving only about 14% of the budget as discretionary operating funds.

The budget details Shorpsley presented show federal funds of roughly $10 million; she said about 91% of that comes from federal excise programs identified in testimony as Pittman‑Robertson and Dingell‑Johnson funds (federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition and fishing equipment). She told the committee that federal funds underwrite a large share of staff costs and subgrants and warned that a reduction in federal funding would force staffing and program cuts unless other revenues replace them. General funds in the FY26 request total $9,380,000, an 11.7% increase from the prior year. License and special funds make up the remainder, and license fee revenue is forecast at just over $10 million.

Shorpsley outlined several budget pressures: increasing salary and benefit costs (including statewide reclassification and other pressures that raised salary/benefit costs by about $1.39 million across funding sources), rising internal service fund charges, and flat or declining program revenue. She said license revenues are expected to decline by about $200,000, motor fuel receipts by roughly $30,000, and timber sale receipts by about $73,000, and that those declines reflect both market changes and limited staff capacity to manage sales and licensing outreach.

The Fish Division carries the largest program share because roughly $4.6 million of the request supports fish culture and hatchery operations. When asked about the status of the South Salisbury hatchery, Shorpsley said it is funded in this budget and is included in a departmentwide infrastructure and cost analysis. She also said several fish culture staff are near retirement; the department projects some vacancy savings if retirement dates produce gaps between incumbents and new hires, but she warned replacement hires may be at different pay rates and that some fish culture roles are highly specialized and difficult to recruit.

Shorpsley described ongoing infrastructure damage from recent storms (July 2023, July 2024 and December 2024), including flooding of an annex storage facility in Berlin and storm damage to access areas at wildlife management areas. She said the department is working on FEMA mitigation and repairs but faces continued strain from state lands infrastructure needs. She also cited statutory requirements from Act 59 and Act 181 as drivers of new workload: Act 59 requires planning and inventory work related to conserved lands, and Act 181 requires the department to develop criteria to evaluate impacts to forest fragmentation and ecological connectivity; she estimated Act 181 work will require about 1.5 full‑time equivalent staff.

As part of an internal reorganization, Shorpsley told the committee the department converted a vacant Salisbury Fish Culture Supervisor position into an assistant land acquisition coordinator to better use existing conservation funding for wetland and Lake Champlain basin projects. She described a broader financial restructuring effort that will examine 10‑year capital needs, mandated and discretionary work, and how peer agencies fund conservation to identify more predictable, long‑term revenue options (including ideas such as a sales‑tax fraction used in other states and voluntary or fee‑based “passive recreation” tags).

On non‑game funding, Shorpsley said the habitat stamp program yields about $228,000 annually and, with federal matching, can generate roughly a 3:1 federal match; other non‑game sources include an estimated $100,000 annually from tax form checkoffs and roughly $75,000 from conservation deed monies. She told the committee the habitat stamp money is targeted to on‑the‑ground habitat work and public lands projects.

Shorpsley closed by telling the committee that the FY26 request contains no new initiatives beyond covering existing programs and that the department will pursue a comprehensive financial restructuring to seek more stable funding going forward.