By Benjamin Rothstein

DOVER – The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control was the last department to appear before the Joint Finance Committee this year, and DNREC’s financial situation means that their asks for general funds only made up about 22% of their total budget.

DNREC is primarily funded by Appropriated Special Funds, or ASF, which is money brought in by the department that is put back into itself, with spending limits set by the state budget. ASF accounts for 54% of DNREC’s budget. This mostly comes in the form of fees, like for permits or park admission.

“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 a processed piece of paper. The fees are the one place that we can get the revenue to cover the whole program,” said DNREC secretary Shawn Garvin. “Pretty much soup to nuts, all of (our programs have) to be covered through our fee package”

Despite the importance placed on DNREC’s fee package, the revenue they earn from it does not seem to be cutting it anymore.

“Most of our fees have not been increased since 1991. With the BIL (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), even more requirements are coming in for permitting and necessities and other things that we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to cover,” said Mr. Garvin.

He said the new proposed package includes 155 changes, with 101 of those being fee increases, and the rest being new fees that did not exist in 1991 or are further fees that break down categories based on complexity. It even includes nine fee decreases, but it was not specified what those were.

According to Mr. Garvin, the department estimates the package would bring in between $6-8 million in increased revenue.

In terms of requests from the general fund itself, DNREC is looking to add a new Natural Resources Police captain position and more funding for their paid internship program to gain future employees.