ITSabout fishing
I'm not surprised you think LCI money goes to lamprey control or dam removal. The perception that most fishermen have (or had) is that they are seriously doing boots on the ground work to help the lake environment which is not the case. That really is the premise for the Thread on this board entitled
LCI STATS too Expensive you be the Judge that has 12,955 hits to date. You should read that, it covers the range of issues people think about. it make take a few hours of reading.
Recently they hired the former Fish and Game Commissioner who is probably funded with grants they receive from the state to carry out things like storm water abatement advisory for homeowners in city of Burlington. This grant money is not the LCI tournament money although they could use LCI tournament money to support that position if they fail in getting grants.
DEC (sister to Fish and game) has lots of money to award grants and LCI is in a good position to receive some since they now have a connection of knowledge of the grant system in the ex commissioner.
And they have on the board a new member also from a state organization that awards grants; Julie Moore (PE) from DEC who directed the clean and clear program at DEC. that program does do boots on the ground work in a massive way. It has many experts, degreed Engineers and Scientist and millions of dollars and i wonder why they need the LCI to tell them anything. if you want to feel good about work accomplished under Julie's direction in her former job, look up at
ANR.state.vt.us/clean and clear report for 2009 and 2010. it is eye opener as to the work going on to improve all watersheds and of course Champlain. The state is really working hard to clean up watersheds. The states loss in not having Julie is the LCI's gain.
Bottom line is no cash from LCI goes to lamprey control or dam removal unless in the last few months things have changed. they do not make donations to fish and game for lamprey control or managed their own lamprey control system unless that has changed in the last few months.
A group of us started to review their financial reports to the IRS and found out in summary that most of the cash flow stays in the organization for maintaining its staff and operations. Very little , that is minor amounts pass thru the organization and make it in cash payments to other organization's such as the Howard center, fishing for kids and other minor donations they make.
IN the process we discovered a major accounting error and they corrected it. They in one year reported revenue net of expenditures which fails to report actual revenue and expenditures in the reporting format.
In this process some of us pleaded with the LCI simply to post on this board the answers to our questions. That was never done. In fact their Lawyer got on an was more interested in controlling us than in divulging information. He promised a cost allocation plan that would explain the efforts of the LCI in each area of their efforts which is essentially probably a payroll tracking system that shows daily what projects or objectives they spend time talking about. that was never posted on this forum.
Bottom Line so far the LCI is a talking head organization that lobbies to get funds in for other organizations, opposes
administratively things that they think harm the lake (DAMS) run off, phosphorus , and supports things they think will help the lake. they have a non profit status due to mainly their education of fishermen and the public through tournaments. they call it education. I guess you could say their primary accomplishment (output) is to influence others to help with the lake. They take a lot of credit for being influential with Senator Leahy but sometimes I wonder if that makes any difference at all. I mean without the LCi would there be a difference in what is happening out there. the number of non profits making studies and consuming millions of grant funds for the ultimate benefit of the lake is exhausting.
If the LCI did not earn revenue through the LCI tournaments they would be long gone. the cost of having the LCI is the massive fishing tournaments and fish kill which some consider exploitation of the lake resources. AS far as bass go, I think the fathers day tournament is the largest bass tournament on the lake. The benefit is a voice out there to help support the lake (if you agree with their agenda) and significant stimulus to the lake economy when 4000 people get out and spend money. And wining a prize is fun if they pay it out timely....which, sadly, some have said on this forum they have had difficulty collecting prizes.
nevertheless, I can say I met Jim Elhers the director , at a fish meeting and he is very forthcoming , very astute, very open, and will talk to anyone at anytime and I believe if you go to his office he and or his staff will answer any question you have about their financials, and what they do. For some reason they just have
a policy I think not to engage with this forum. had they engaged , I bet the hits would be minimal and would not have turned into a mess.
If I am wrong about any of this above, somebody please let me know.
MikeP