The House Finance Committee will hold a hearing April 29 on legislation that would set aside a portion of the state Sales Tax to provide funding for the Game and Fish and Boat Commissions.

House Bill 1676 (Levdansky-D-Allegheny) would set aside 0.00116 percent of the revenues collected for the Game Commission (about $11 million) and 0.00058 percent for the Fish and Boat Commission (about $5.5 million).

The Fish and Boat Commission has a budget of about $64.5 million and the Game Commission budget is $89.2 million, all presently from license sales, federal funds, mineral leases and Growing Greener II bond funds.

The Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Michael Schmit, Game Commission, Gary Moore, Fish and Boat Commission, Jan Jarrett, PennFuture, Ed Wentzler, United Bowhunters of PA and Melody Zullinger, PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.

Rep. David Levdansky (D-Allegheny) serves as Majority Chair of the Committee and Rep. Steven Nickol (R-York) serves as Minority Chair.

4/25/2008