Representative Norman Dicks, Chair of the House of Representatives' Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, called for a $15 million boost to funding levels for the National Wildlife Refuge System (System) at a subcommittee hearing in late February. The proposed fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget for the System is $434 million, which is equivalent to the current funding levels. With that budget, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) likely would have to reduce as many as 50 staff positions, which would not help to alleviate the System's $3 billion maintenance backlog, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

In FY 2008, the Administration had requested $395 million for refuges. As a result, the FWS developed a refuge-restructuring plan that would have consolidated refuges and eliminated 20 percent of refuge staff. Existing budget shortfalls have required more than 200 refuges to be unstaffed and little additional management accomplished for basic day-to-day operations and to counter the growing problem of invasive species. However, Congress pushed back and ultimately increased funding by $39 million for 2008.

Although the Administration's 2009 budget proposal started at the higher level, FWS staff have said that the System needs $15 million more each year to operate effectively and start to address the maintenance backlog.

"We get the message," said Dicks. "We need to come up with $15 million if we want to sustain what we did last year."