This report covers Texas Park and Wildlife Department (TPWD) testimony before the Sunset Advisory Committee. TPWD Testimony begins at 2.10.44 mark. Link can be found here. An agenda can be found here. An executive summary of the Sunset Staff Report published by the Sunset Advisory Commission can be found here. The full report can be found here. TPWD’s Self-evaluation report can be found here.
The HillCo report below is a summary of remarks intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics discussed. This report is not a verbatim transcript; it is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Sunset Staff Recommendations
Danielle Nasr – Sunset Staff Report Project Manager
- Summarizes TPWD activities and obligations
- Draws from accompanying Sunset report on TPWD
- Issue 1: Recommends TPWD be renewed due to valuable services and outcomes
- Issue 2: Regulatory Summary
- TPWD has diverse license/permit authority, including recreational issuances of hunting/fishing licenses and commercial licenses/permits
- Report focused on commercial licensing/permitting process
- Recommends increasing communication about the alignment and distinction of TPWD’s regulatory and criminal authority for commercial licenses/permits
- Recommends modifying agency best practices
- Issue 3: Strategic Planning
- The Land and Water plan has lately strayed from statutory bounds, harming efficiency and workability
- Recommends refining Land and Water plan to better fit statutory bounds
- Recommends enhancement and streamlining of TPWD strategic planning for the future
- Issue 4: Internal Auditing
- Recommends closer examination of TPWD internal auditing processes, as report found that audits may not be comprehensive enough
- Found that Risk Assessment and Identification practices in TPWD Internal Auditing were insufficient, and several recommendations had not been implemented
- Recommends more formal oversight of the TPWD audits by the commission and increasing audit resources form the TPWD
Question and Answer Period
- Duggins (Public Member) – Asks if TPWD was abusing license and permit discretion unfairly, regarding Recommendation 2.1
- Report did not find abuse of discretion, only that current processes may create unfair outcomes unintentionally due to inconsistencies in the processes
- Duggins (Public Member) – Asks if report recommends a statutory review involving multiple SOA hearings for license revocation cases
- Not 2 hearings, but access to an SOA hearing may improve fairness and clarity in TPWD process
- Since licenses we discuss focus on those that impact livelyhoods of Texans, access to the Administrative Procedures Act should be granted when possible
- Duggins (Public Member) – Asks if this issue could be handled by management recommendation rather than statute
- Potentially, but some license with review processes established in statute already, so report recommends making this the case for all commercial licenses to increase clarity and “even the playing field”
- Paxton – Asks what projected costs are for implementing online permitting processes for commercial licenses and if cost-savings occur over time
- Agency will have more specific information, but report concludes that the cost-savings would be great over time
- Agency had concluded the costs would be prohibitive right now, but in the future may be possible
TPWD Response to Sunset
Reid Marion – Chair of TPWD
- Thanks legislature and Sunset for their support and aid to TPWD
- Concurs with Sunset Staff recommendations and discusses how two Commission members have already implemented many changes to auditing processes in line with Sunset
Carter Smith – Executive Director of TPWD
- Emphasizes need for state parks and outdoor activities during quarantine
- Discusses changes in park attendance and licensing operations initially, with large spikes in recent months as Texas reopens
- Thanks Sunset Staff for report, agrees with recommendations but may have some differences in implementation
- Issue 1: Concur with report
- Issue 2: Commercial Licenses/Permits
- Recommendation 2.1 – Review process for licenses and permit revocation
- Agrees with desire to increase review for more permits
- Requests review panel occur before revocation of permit, rather than after
- Requests these be TPWD policy changes, rather than statutory changes
- Recommendation 2.2 – Formal Risk Inspection Process
- Concur about standardization of review for TPWD law enforcement – current purview is delegated to Wardens
- Request managerial recommendation rather than statutory change
- Recommendation 2.5 – Standardization of Regulatory Permits
- Currently TPWD developing digital permitting and licensing programs for commercial licenses
- Cannot standardize permit process however due to extreme differences in types of permits being offered
- Issue 3: Strategic Planning
- Recommendation 3.4 – Consistent Actionable Policies
- TPWD is working to manage action and policies currently
- Issue 4: Internal Auditing
- TPWD recognizes value of audit processes
- Recommendation 4.1 – New Subcommittee for Audit
- TPWD essentially does this already with Sunset, but is not a formal subcommittee
- Recommendation 4.2 – Agency Risk Analysis
- Currently developing new risk identification programs as part of overhaul of audit process
- Recommendation 4.3 – Internal Audit Plan
- Disagrees with analysis about audit being poor in past
- Agree with the spirit of the recommendation
- TPWD will continue improving auditing and compliance efforts
Question and Answer Period
- Lucio – Discusses he will bring some other recommendations to TPWD separately. Recommends increasing openness of TPWD facilities and licenses for out-of-state visitors (including lower fees and increased access for tourists) to boost economic outcomes from tourism. Also recommends making private licenses annual versus seasonal.
- Canales – Comments on lack of lifetime license opportunity for those under the age of 17 in Texas
- TPWD will investigate changes
- Canales – expresses desire to work with TPWD to implement photo tagging of harvests and geotagging of potential dangers and issues for Wardens
- Currently allowing photo tagging for some alligator licenses and turkey, looking to expand
- Paxton – Asks about costs for digitizing commercial licenses and permit processes
- Recreational licenses online already. An automated renewal/application process for commercial licenses is hard due to content of permits/licenses varying greatly, and statutory requirements for reviewing license renewal. Digitization not possible for all licenses but is for about 97% of license holders.
- Cost would also be prohibitive – no exact number, but very high
- Paxton – Asks if there is a main cause for not renewing licenses/permits
- It varies case-by-case, but a common cause is compliance/reporting issues with the permit holder. There are many issues TPWD considers when reviewing licenses and permits. We can work to improve communication with permit holders.
- Canales – Asks about possibility of including information about weapon and bullet ballistics in Hunters Education program to prevent people from harm by stray bullets. Describes story of children near his district who were shot on accident from a far distance as a result of ballistics.
- Agrees with fact that bullets can travel over one mile, and agrees to work on including this kind of information in Hunter’s Ed.
- Hall – Compliments TPWD for cooperation with other agencies and state legislature
- Harris-Lawrence (Public Member) – Compliments TPWD and staff on behalf of public
- Lucio – Asks if there is a print publication of The Outdoors
- Due to declines in ad revenue, this year it is digital only. We are looking at print once again next year and recognize this as a valuable resource for hunters/fishers
- Duggins (Public Member) – Asks if there is already a review process for commercial permits (relating to Recommendation 2.1)
- Yes, but it occurs after revocation if the permit holder contests the revocation
- Duggins (Public Member) – Asks about TPWD’s position on inspections relating to Recommendation 2.2
- TPWD wants to develop clearer criteria for Wardens for inspections and license compliance
Chair offers final thanks to TPWD