Aside from personnel contingencies, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) is only requesting a 1.4% increase in funding, but continues to stress the need for fee increases.
Only 22% of DNREC’s operating budget comes from Delaware’s general fund, with 24% primarily coming from federal funding and 54% coming from collected revenue, fees and other service charges.
DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin says legislation introduced last year proposes 155 fee changes, with 101 increases, 45 new fees and nine decreases.
Garvin explains most fees have not been raised since 1991, and without the proposed hikes, DNREC will not be able to afford state pay policy increases and may resort to reducing services.
“One of the things that’s very important for people to understand is there’s a lot of people who think the fees that we get are just to process the piece of paper. The fees are the one place that we can get the revenue to cover the whole program," he notes.
Garvin says the department has almost 100 vacancies, and even if there were applicants for every position, they would have to leave around 25 of those positions vacant because they do not have the necessary funding.
The fee package legislation was introduced to the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee last June and has yet to receive a hearing.
DNREC's 1.4% increase includes two main funding requests.
Gov. John Carney is recommending the full funding to create a new Natural Resources Police Captain position and additional monies to support the paid internship program.
DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin says last year they received partial funding for the internship program, and this year the governor is recommending the full $115,600 request be met.
“The hope being, one, that we’ve kind of set the ground floor for a program moving forward, but also that we are setting, as I said, the feeder pattern for the next generation of DNREC employees," he says.
As with most other departments, Garvin says DNREC is losing volunteer interns and future recruits to private and public paid internship programs.
Carney chose not to recommend DNREC’s funding request for two Community Relations Coordinator positions to support environmental justice initiatives.
Office of Management and Budget Director Cerron Cade says they believe DNREC has vacant positions they could reclassify to satisfy the need for the Community Relations Coordinators.
