UFA Board meets in Petersburg

PETERSBURG – United Fisherman of Alaska members gathered in Petersburg last week when it conducted its 2015 Fall Board Meeting.

Board members representing 35 Alaska commercial fishing organizations began their meeting Tuesday Oct. 27 where representatives of Governor Mallott, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, University of Alaska Anchorage and other independent commercial fishing agencies gave presentations to the board.

Much of the time was devoted to internal discussion regarding seafood industry taxes and fees and was not open to the press.

Wednesday morning the board heard from Department of Revenue Tax Division Director Ken Alper about state budget issues.

“It’s not fishery specific but it’s

good background as to why we’re in the heap of trouble you keep hearing

about why the state’s fiscal situation is as poor as it is as suddenly as it is,” Alper said.

Alper gave a breakdown of the general fund and how much money goes into various state departments.

“Fish and Game it’s actually a pretty small piece. All of the state departments are relatively small amounts of money.

All of the money or the great bulk of the money is concentrated in education paying money directly to school districts, to health and social services which is largely Medicaid spending and what we call payments and obligations, statewide spending.”

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brooks also presented Tuesday the FY 2016 $208 million ADFG operating budget. Commercial Fisheries account for more than 60 percent of the department’s $65 million unrestricted general funds—which was cut by 18 percent in FY 2016 with another 10 percent cut anticipated for FY 2017.

Brooks said the cuts impact enumeration projects such as sonars, weirs, towers and aerial surveys leading to imprecise data and more conservative management regimes. The department will always err on the side of fish and wildlife and sustained yield.

The board and ADFG personnel also discussed various types of fish tax.

Wednesday much of the discussion was internal, including a performance audit of the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission—which issues permits and limits the number of participating fishers and was the basis for UFA formation. The Division of Legislative Audit performed the audit and according to report conclusions found “significant efficiencies could be achieved; however, efficiencies were not predicated on eliminating the agency and merging its functions with other state agencies.”

The audit only recommended that the CFECs administrative functions be merged with ADFG.

UFA is opposed to HB 112, which would repeal CFEC and transfer functions to ADFG.

“Our organization has a number of concerns and unanswered questions regarding the effects of dissolving CFEC,” wrote UFA Executive Director Julianne Curry last April in a letter to the House Resources Committee. “Given the speed that HB 112 is moving this year we have changed our position from take no action to opposition.”

UFA members finished the meeting and took action on agenda items Thursday, October 29.