TPW Commission
Work Session, August 19, 2026
Transcript
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
August 19, 2026
COMMISSION HEARING ROOM
4200 SMITH SCHOOL ROAD
AUSTIN, TEXAS 78744
COMMISSION WORK SESSION AND EXECUTIVE SESSION
CHAIRMAN PAUL L. FOSTER: Wow, it got quiet in a hurry.
That’s good.
Good morning, everyone.
Before we begin, I will take roll call.
I’m Chairman Paul Foster.
Vice Chairman Bell?
VICE CHAIRMAN OLIVER BELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Doggett?
COMMISSIONER LESLIE DOGGETT: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Galo?
COMMISSIONER ANNA GALO: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner McCall?
COMMISSIONER JOHN A. McCALL: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Patton?
COMMISSIONER BOBBY PATTON: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Timmerman?
COMMISSIONER TIM TIMMERMAN: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
This meeting is called to order on August 19, 2026, at 9:04 a.m.
Before proceeding with any business, I believe Dr. Yoskowitz has a statement to make.
DR. DAVID YOSKOWITZ: Public notice of this meeting containing all items on the proposed agendas has been filed in the Office of the Secretary of State as required by Chapter 551, Government Code, referred to as the Open Meetings Act.
I would like for this fact to be noted in the official record of this meeting.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Commissioners, as a reminder, please turn on your microphones and announce your name before you speak, and then turn your microphone off.
The first order of business is the approval of the minutes from the previous Work Session held on May 27, 2026.
These have been distributed.
Do I hear a motion for approval?
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Commissioner Bell, so moved.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Thank you.
Second?
COMMISSIONER DOGGETT: Second.
Doggett, second.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
All in favor?
[ CHORUS OF “AYES” ]
Any opposed?
That passes.
Work Session Item No. 1: Executive Director Updates.
And turn it over to Mr. Yoskowitz.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Great.
Good morning, Chairman.
Good morning, Commissioners.
For the record, my name is David Yoskowitz, Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
I would like to provide you an update germane to the Texas Parks and Wildlife operations, and today it will be a team event.
Myself, and then we have a few other presenters that will be talking about very specific issues.
So first we’ll have Internal Affairs update by Chief Mike Durand, then a New World Screwworm update from Alan Cain, an oyster update from Robin Riechers, and then I will close with a briefing on the July floods.
So, at this time, I’d like to invite up Chief Durand for his report.
MICHAEL DURAND: Good morning, Commissioners, Chairman.
For the record, my name is Chief Mike Durand, Director of Internal Affairs.
In accordance with Parks and Wildlife Code 11.0174, Internal Affairs Office, I’ll be providing you with statistical information for the fiscal year that has been tracked from September 1, 2025, through July 31, of 2026.
You may recall from the May Commission meeting that the Office of Internal Affairs categories as all complaints, compliments, and investigations into specific categories.
These categories are as follows:
Administrative, which means allegations of policy and procedure violations.
Criminal, which are allegations of state and federal law violations.
Informal: complaints of customer service issues that are typically addressed immediately and referred to the appropriate TPWD division for follow-up.
Tracking purposes: no internal affairs investigations are warranted.
Compliments: positive actions are also tracked in the IA Pro Case Management System if submitted to Internal Affairs through our online webpage or an officer’s chain of command.
Use of force: incidents in which a TPWD law enforcement officer utilized force during the commission of his or her duties.
For the reporting purpose of this presentation, we’ve condensed this information into three main categories: tracking and informal; compliments; and investigations.
Please note that investigations include administrative, criminal, and use of force combined.
The Office of Internal Affairs has tracked 184 tracking and informal entries, 72 compliments, and 79 investigations.
And this information is based on the total number of compliments, complaints, and investigations that are received and/or investigated by the Office of Internal Affairs; and does not include complaints that are routed outside the formal process noted on the TPWD webpage.
The five-year trend of all categories tracked has shown a gradual increase, approximately 45.3 percent from 2022 to 2025, with significant increase for FY 2026. This can be explained typically because improved tracking of case complaints beginning in FY 2022 and in 2024.
And then you will notice that there has been a significant increase in the number of compliments received and tracked.
Since 2013, the Office of Internal Affairs has tracked any compliment received, but very few were actually sent into the Office of Internal Affairs – and that was either by the public or a TPWD division.
During the last legislative session, Senate Bill 1445 created mandates for the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement, also known as TCOLE, who in turn created mandates for law enforcement agencies to create model policies relating to hiring procedures, misconduct, personnel files, fit for duty, and minimum standards, with a deadline of these mandates being July of 2025, approximately.
As a result of these mandates, TCOLE recommended TPWD have a way for the public to easily submit a complaint on an officer or an employee. Internal Affairs created a new compliment form and process on the publicly facing portion of the TPWD Internal Affairs webpage, which went in effect in July of 2025, which explains the increased starting in 2025 of the number of compliments that we have tracked.
And again, moving forward, as new state parks are created, leading to additional recreational opportunities for the public, it is logical to expect that the overall number of these entries will also increase.
A disposition or finding is assigned once an investigation conducted by Internal Affairs is completed.
The following classifications are used:
Sustained, which means enough evidence to justify a reasonable conclusion of misconduct.
Not sustained: insufficient evidence to either prove or disprove the allegations.
Exonerated: incident occurred but was lawful and within policy.
Unfounded: the allegation is false or not factual.
Other, which would mean administrative legal justification for the incident, such as reasonable and within policy, or out of policy, or not reasonable.
Of the 79 investigations that the Office of Internal Affairs has tracked for this year, 14 have been sustained. One is founded not sustained. Nine have been exonerated. Five unfounded.
45 in the other category. And as of July 31, we had five that were open or pending.
The Office of Internal Affairs has tracked a total of 43 reported use-of-force incidents for this time period of this fiscal year, with 42 having been reasonable and within policy, and one having been reasonable and outside of policy.
And finally, since our last Commission meeting, members of the Office of Internal Affairs team have participated in the following events:
On May 4, members of the Internal Affairs team traveled to San Angelo to participate in tactical medical training, an update that was hosted by the State Parks Law Enforcement team.
On May 12 and 13, Captain Parker attended an alert update in Kyle.
On May 14, Chief Durand, Major Barker, Captain Parker attended the Lone Star Land Stewards Banquet. And the Internal Affairs team would like to congratulate all of our award recipients for 2026.
On June 30 and July 1, Chief Durand and Major Barker attended an alert update as well in Kyle.
On July 8 and 9, Captains Parker and Hatfield traveled to Huntsville, Texas, and attended an Internal Affairs training course provided by the Texas Police Chiefs Association. July 27 through the 30th, Chief Durand, Major Barker, and Captain Parker traveled to McAllen to attend and participate in the 2026 State Park Conference.
At this time, this concludes my presentation. And I’m happy to accept any questions at this time. Without any questions, I will turn it over to our Wildlife Director, Alan Cain.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Thank you.
Alan?
ALAN CAIN: Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners.
For the record, I’m Alan Cain, Wildlife Division Director.
This morning, I’ll be providing an update on the status of New World Screwworm in Texas, and the Department’s response to that infestation.
On June 3 of this year, New World Screwworm was detected in a calf in Zavala County. And by June 4, TPWD staff had deployed to the Incident Command Post in Eagle Pass, Texas, to support the response alongside our partners, Texas Animal Health Commission and the USDA.
So, at the height of the response, we’ve had up to 45 Wildlife Division staff deployed at the Incident Command Post and remotely throughout the state.
More recently, as that response has kind of stabilized, we’ve had fewer cases.
Staff deployed to the response has been less than a dozen. Additionally, the Unified Command Post has been moved to the State Operations Center here in Austin, and we are working closely with all agency partners in this response.
To date, there have been 45 cases reported in 16 counties on 35 premises in Texas. There’s been one case detected in New Mexico right along our border close to Andrews, Texas, there. So, 46 total in the U.S.
The Texas Animal Health Commission has established 19 infested zones and surveillance zones, as illustrated on that map – the yellow being the infested zones and the blue the surveillance zones around those.
Of all the cases we’ve had in Texas, 45, four are still active and 41 are inactive. This infestation includes 22 cows, 16 sheep, 5 goats, and 2 dogs in the state.
The fact that we only have four active cases speaks volumes to the success of the response thus far, and the critical partnership between the agencies and the private landowners and industry out there.
We couldn’t do this without everybody’s support working in the same direction. It’s quite impressive.
The primary tool to combat New World Screwworm is the release of sterile flies. USDA has been releasing sterile flies since February of 2026.
And while early fly dispersal was occurring along a 50-mile buffer, kind of along that Texas-Mexico border along the Rio Grande there, from Brownsville to Del Rio, since this initial detection in June, USDA has expanded that fly dispersal area to the area in teal green that you see on the map there.
And to date, they’ve released more than 793 million sterile flies. And that was last week. We’re probably approaching 850 million or a little bit more. We’re currently releasing about 80 million flies per week in the state.
Fly dispersal is accomplished in three ways, and include aerial dispersal by plane, which is the most common.
And aerial release provides steady, uniform coverage across a large geographic area and hard-to-reach areas.
So that’s really the primary mechanism to combat the fly.
Other dispersal methods include ground-release chambers, which is what you see on the screen there in the photos there, that little tray with the little plastic sheeting over the top of it.
And truck release is another option.
The sterile pupae are dyed a fluorescent green color so the sterile flies can be distinguished from the wild flies as USDA is conducting its surveillance out on that rural landscape out there. And you can see those dyed pupae, and then they’ll ultimately emerge into flies.
So, the department’s primary role to the New World Screwworm infestation is a three-pronged approach that includes: outreach; wildlife surveillance; removal of infested wildlife; and enforcement of movement restrictions for live native wildlife movements out of infested zones or prior to leaving those zones.
The department has an extensive network of private landowners that our game wardens and biologists work with throughout the state, and that encompasses about 12,000 landowner manager contacts and represents 32 million acres statewide.
That resource in itself – I can’t stress enough – that’s the one that’s leveraged by this department to support USDA and Texas Animal Health Commission in engagement with landowners for things like fly trapping, establishment of the ground-release chambers, inspection requests, general surveillance, and education information about those zones.
So, it’s critically important.
And if you’ve ever heard Dr. Schmoyer, or Admiral Schmoyer, talk, he comments how important it is for us in those landowner contacts.
So, capitalizing on those contacts, our biologists have contacted 7,600, approximately, cooperating landowners and permit holders to inform and educate them about New World Screwworm zones as they promote vigilance and surveillance for New World Screwworm infestations.
This personal communication has been well received by the landowners and managers we’ve talked to, and it’s been critically helpful for USDA in the response. Staff have also been talking to landowners to secure 329 trap site locations and 22 ground-release chamber locations for USDA and Animal Health Commission.
We’ve also developed a number of outreach documents, but most importantly a hunter and landowner guidance document that was sent to 23,000 contacts that we have, plus our partners that also are distributing that information.
And since June 3, staff have presented at 57 workshops, reaching about 5,500 attendees.
So, a lot of outreach out there. Wildlife Division staff have also trained an additional 1,070 game wardens and state park staff on collecting samples for suspected New World Screwworm larvae, and how to mitigate those samples and carcasses.
These trainings are critical because game wardens and other staff serve as a force multiplier for eyes on the ground in responding to suspect cases.
So, wildlife surveillance is a critical pillar in New World Screwworm management, and helps to ensure efficient and effective use of those sterile flies.
So that surveillance, along with livestock surveillance and trap-based surveillance, helps demonstrate the absence of New World Screwworms, which will be important when validating screwworm-free status in these zones and ultimately zone removal, which we’re getting to that stage.
They’re looking into that, so that’s a good thing. And to that end, our biologists continue to respond to reports of suspected cases of screwworm.
And staff have inspected or investigated 7,200 animals, approximately. And of those, 55 were considered animals of interest.
Most importantly, none of those came back as having screwworm.
So, no wildlife cases. And that’s a good thing. The department is also monitoring 466 game cameras on 38 wildlife management areas, and 97 game cameras on 21 state parks.
So, there’s been quite a bit of discussion around utilizing drones to assist with surveillance of wildlife for screwworm infestation.
And our role in that is, again, to facilitate that cooperation between those landowners and the USDA to provide them access for their drone teams.
USDA Wildlife Services has a drone team that conducts much of that. And so far, we’ve been able to facilitate access to 2.4 million acres on 239 properties, so a big chunk of country.
In addition to those inspections, I just want to point out that USDA Wildlife Services has conducted 63,000 wildlife observations, 12,000 being ground observations, 23,000 from drone investigations that include over 1,200 flights, and 32,000 are trail camera photos.
Of those, only 22 animals were of interest, or identified. And again, none of them turned out to be… to have New World Screwworm detections on the wildlife side of things. I will note that when they were doing their drone surveys, they did detect a sheep out in West Texas there with a screwworm.
So, the drone surveillance is working in some of those areas.
And so, to date, we’ve experienced a great collaborative effort.
And the department will continue to work with our state and federal agency partners to respond to the New World Screwworm infestation in Texas.
The department also remains engaged in the Governor’s New World Screwworm Response Team that our staff are involved on, as well as Commissioner Galo and Commissioner Patton.
And lastly, we will continue to be a resource for landowners, ranch managers, and hunters in Texas.
So, that concludes my presentation. Before I turn it over to Robin Riechers, if you all have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer those.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Do we have any questions for Alan?
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: I just have a comment. I just wanted to compliment the department’s response on this, and it seems to be working, and the spread has slowed down considerably.
I had a meeting with Chancellor Hegar of A&M, and he invited me to a meeting on September the 3rd. And I asked Dr. Yoskowitz.
He’s going to join me.
There’s a meeting at A&M. And Secretary Rollins is going to be there, and Texas Animal Health, Bud Dinges, is going to be there, all presenting on this subject.
And I compliment the department on all the collaboration.
But I think that’s why this is really working, is because all the agencies are working together.
So, I look forward to going to that meeting and learning more, and hearing from Secretary Rollins about where this is headed as far as the federal response and all.
But that will be very interesting. But compliments to the department on the response. It’s working.
MR. CAIN: Thank you.
I appreciate that.
And the team appreciates it.
Those are the guys doing all the work in the field…
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Absolutely.
MR. CAIN: …so we appreciate it.
Yeah, absolutely.
It ought to be a good meeting.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Yeah, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: And I assume you’ve had good cooperation from all the ranchers in the area?
Obviously, all the different agencies working together are important.
But in a state where most of the land is privately owned, you need access to virtually every acre out there. And I assume that’s working pretty well?
MR. CAIN: Yes, the vast majority of people…
Early on, there were some folks, “Don’t tell them about the screwworm over here if you see something suspect.”
But we keep telling people the two best things you can do is put eyes on animals. Because if you do that and we figure out it’s there, you’re going to get flies. And that’s how you stop this.
And when you start telling people that, they’re like, “Hey, I’ll volunteer for whatever I need.“
So, it’s been good.
Good response.
And the personal communication, it’s gone way better than I ever expected.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Good.
MR. CAIN: The landowners are telling us, “Man, we talked for 45 minutes about screwworm.” Not everybody, but folks are appreciative of that kind of communication.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: And are you surprised that you haven’t detected any cases in wildlife?
I am.
MR. CAIN: Maybe a little bit.
But I’ll tell you, that’s a question that we get all the time.
Dr. Admiral Schmoyer, we got that question this weekend in a meeting.
And the thing is, I think people had this idea that when screwworm got here, it was going to be like a plague of locusts, and it wasn’t, right?
And we’d been dropping flies, USDA had since February of this year.
And so, I think the population was suppressed enough that it wasn’t a big issue.
Plus, we got past… by the time it got here, fawning season was already starting to pick up.
And by the time this ramped up, you know, things in wildlife, injuries like umbilical stumps from fawns or the birthing process, those things had passed before the bulk of the flies were there.
Plus, the sterile fly technique is working.
And that’s the thing, you know, being able to target where all those flies are going.
And we… you know, 800 million flies since February, that’s helping keep that suppressed.
And so, if there’s anything potential… I could see something as bucks start to shed out of velvet and rub antlers and get injuries, that might be a spot.
But right now, I’m going to knock on wood that it stays like that.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Yeah.
MR. CAIN: And we’ve got the population suppressed.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Well, and I want to just echo Commissioner Timmerman’s comments.
Congratulations to you guys.
Job well done.
It’s a testament to agencies working together and all kind of rowing in the same direction.
MR. CAIN: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: And so, well done.
MR. CAIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Galo.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Commissioner Galo.
I just want to thank you.
We had an informational meeting yesterday in Webb County.
The county judge, Tano Tijerina, he organized it with Dean-Senator Judith Zaffirini and myself. And the Dean-Senator was very impressed with Eric Garza and his presentation and the collaboration and the cooperation of all the agencies.
So, I wanted to say congratulations. Because she is a perfectionist, and to get that kind of comment and compliment from her means a lot.
So, I was very proud of the department. And she’s very proud of the work that she told me to compliment all the Commissioners and the Chairman, and that we’re all working together and helping suppress this pest from proliferating.
So, thank you.
ALAN CAIN: Thank you.
I’ll pass that along to Eric.
He’ll appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Thank you.
ROBIN RIECHERS: All right.
Chairman and Commissioners, for the record, my name is Robin Riechers, Director of Coastal Fisheries.
And I’m here to present to you what I hope you will see as some progress we made on four critical elements of oyster fisheries management.
The first that I want to talk about here today is cultivated oyster mariculture.
And since the last time we briefed you last summer on this, we’ve increased the number of grow-out permits by five, and we’re now up to 19, and we have 23 which are in the conditional status, which basically means we’ve approved them.
But they’re still seeking to get some of their other permits from the other agencies.
And then if they choose to go forward, they will come online at some point.
In addition to that, we increased the nursery hatchery permits by one, and we’re now up to eight.
And probably the most important thing on this slide is the next bullet, and that’s we’ve had three Texas hatcheries this year produce triploids this year for the first time.
And that’s because of the actions that you all took, which allowed for us to include in the parentage the Northern Gulf stock where we basically expanded the range and allowed parents from Louisiana all the way over to the Alabama-Florida line.
And so, what that allowed for some people to do is bring that strain from Louisiana and LSU – it’s an LSU-developed strain – and use them here in Texas to create those tetraploids.
And we believe… As you heard last time, there were some difficulties in supply of seed to our oyster farmers.
And we think this is a great first step in helping to alleviate some of those supply issues.
Additionally, last year we produced over three million oysters that were harvested here off our mariculture farms.
And that was double the number that we had produced in 2024.
And this year to date, or through June, we have 2.5 million oysters already harvested. So, we clearly expect that we may again beat the number that we had produced the year before.
And it’s gone up every year that we’ve had production since 2022, so indicative of a growing industry.
Next, I’d like to kind of update you on the commercial oyster harvest season.
As you may recall, the harvest season starts in November, runs through April, and we open and close those various Texas Department of State Health Service areas, which we have listed here as TX-5 or TX-1, classifying those areas.
But we were able to open three up in Galveston, four in Matagorda, and two in Aransas at the start of the season.
Notably, that is the most areas opened when we started a season since 2021.
We did, of course, as we always do now, we sample throughout the year. And when we see that the market oysters inside of those areas aren’t really enough to continue harvesting, or we get concerned about degradation of the reef, we then close those areas.
And you’ll see that the areas in Galveston, 1, 5, and 7, did close before the end of the season.
And we also closed 19, 21, 13, and 20 in Matagorda.
29 and 30 in Aransas stayed open the entire year.
But I also want to note that in Galveston and in Matagorda you see that a couple of those areas did not close until March and April. So not only do we open more areas, but we were able to keep more areas open throughout most of the season.
When we do that sampling not only are we looking to see if samples require us to close areas, but we also look for areas that we think will grow into enough market oysters.
And you can see there, even as late in the season as March, with the season closing in April, we were able to open some more area there in Matagorda as we opened up TX-14.
So, again, that program of opening and closing continues to work, and we continue to look for ways to refine it.
But it is a way that we’re managing and ensuring that we’re both keeping the ecological benefits and the ecosystem services those reefs provide, but also allowing the balance for that harvest.
With that, we were at about 275,000 sacks last year.
Most of those, as you can see there, were coming from Galveston Bay. And about 84 percent of that total comes from our public harvest areas, as opposed to our private leases.
Next, I’m going to go on and talk to you a little bit about those private leases, otherwise known as Certificates of Location. As you recall, we expanded that program, came before you to pass the rules and guidelines that would allow us to expand that program.
It’s expanding it both for restoration purposes as well as for commercial purposes beyond Galveston Bay.
We’ve been working hand-in-glove, basically, with the General Land Office in reviewing those applications.
All those applications were due to us prior to the end of November.
We had 152 total applications; as you see there, almost 9,500 acres in possible applications that we reviewed with the General Land Office. We basically were able to give the initial consult, basically whether they were accept, declined, or modify, in late March, early April.
Due to some continued effort by the General Land Office in actually relaxing some of their buffers, we went out back to some of those people who were declined and/or asked to modify, and we basically told them their new results.
And basically, it may have moved them up in a category that was a little more lenient to them in terms of where their place was trying to be sited. And so, that occurred as of June this year.
And so basically, our initial consultations with all these people have now been completed.
We are working with them to set up what we call Natural Resource Surveys. Those surveys, if we don’t have enough data in an area they’ll be required to help go collect that data.
Basically, it’s trying to determine whether those areas actually are on degraded reef, which was the goal of the program and what we’re trying to do, and also to protect other sorts of natural resources such as seagrass and those sorts of things.
So, we’re still in that process with General Land Office and with all those applicants.
And clearly, we’re making headway in getting new Certificate of Locations, or private leases, into those other bay systems.
And you can see there, even under just the accepted group, we have a chance of expanding our acreage.
Our current acreage in Galveston Bay is about 2,300 acres.
So, we have a chance to expand that, at least double it, throughout those other bay systems and throughout the overall coastal areas, and maybe even more than double it depending on how many of those people actually go through with wanting to have a lease.
Lastly, the program I want to kind of highlight here is the Commercial Oyster Buyback Program. We’re in the throes of trying to finish the tenth round of that buyback program. You’ll recall last year when we visited we were just starting the ninth round of that program. The ninth round was extremely successful. We had 115 applications. We were able to purchase 112 of those.
That all was made available by the great philanthropic partnership that we have, and of course many of you know, of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation S. Reed Morian Oyster Buyback Program. And we had great success in basically using those philanthropic dollars, along with state dollars, and allowing us to do that fixed price. And so, in round nine, last summer, late last summer, we were able to come across the threshold with 112 licenses.
Currently, round ten is out. We got 46 applications. We have 45 people across the threshold right now.
We fully expect to get to 46 sometime right after the beginning of the next fiscal year, which of course is just a few days away. That will in total, and based mostly on the last two rounds, basically 161 licenses if we get the 46 license, will have been bought, all of which basically 158 of those will have been purchased in the last year. And that equates to about a 29 percent reduction in the total number of licenses.
And so great thanks to our philanthropic partners again, and our Commissioners, past Commissioners, Coastal Conservation Association, and the Foundation who all helped support that.
With that, I’d be happy to answer any questions before I turn it back over to Dr. Yoskowitz.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: I have a question.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Timmerman.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: What has the price done from round one to round ten?
I assume we’ve been raising the price to get more applications.
Could you kind of go into that?
MR. RIECHERS: Yes, Sir.
Round one through round eight, we conducted what we call a reverse bid type approach.
And we had done that with our other fishery license buybacks in shrimp, crabs, and finfish in the past.
Those were always very successful in that approach.
With oysters, for whatever reasons, when we first started in 2018, until last year, we had not been very successful.
And so, working with our partners and working with other individuals who wanted to help kind of push this program to a higher level, that’s where we came up with this fixed price approach of $30,000.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Seems to be working.
MR. RIECHERS: Yeah.
Yes, Sir.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Well done.
Thank you.
MR. RIECHERS: Thank you.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Thank you, Robin.
Before I close out with the flooding update, July 26 flooding update, I do want to go back to New World Screwworm for a moment.
Alan and his team, as you noted, Chairman and Commissioner Timmerman, did a heck of a job spinning up extremely quickly to respond. But also, part of that spin up and that effort was due to game wardens, law enforcement helping out tremendously, and state parks also being incredible partners, and be able to
get eyes on the ground, people on the ground; work within our own properties, but also working with other landowners.
So, I want to just thank you both for getting your team spun up and helping us as well.
I’ve updated the Commission a little bit on the 2026 July floods. Unfortunately, we’re here talking about July floods again.
We were here talking about it last year, in July 2025.
So just to orient you on the severity of these floods this year was really the rapid rise, much like we saw last year.
So, on the screen there you can see on the left Garner State Park, how quickly those floodwaters rose. And then on the right, that’s LBJ State Park and Historic Site, and how quickly the floodwaters rose. And I’ll have a few more pictures to share with you on the impacts of that.
So, law enforcement teams and park staff were deeply involved, once again, in rescues and evacuations and providing assistance to our park visitors wherever needed.
In summary, what has happened in those July floods where we had 14 of our state parks were impacted, no reported injuries, no impact to state park visitors, no impact to any of the state park visitors, personal belongings, equipment, et cetera.
But damage to the parks was significant.
There was some road erosion, debris deposits, damage to the LBJ swimming pool right there.
Unfortunately, that had just been refurbished the year before, but the team did a heck of a job of getting that all put back together. And I think Rodney, we are back open for that for the last few days of the season.
Yeah, yeah. So once again, no injuries and no impact to park visitors.
State park staff and park police officers worked with more visitors to get them to safe ground. Those that could not evacuate, such as at Garner State Park, didn’t want them on the roads. But we wanted to get them to higher ground, work with them to do that.
Overall, we had a couple of thousand visitors, or would-be visitors, impacted through cancellation of reservations or, as I mentioned a moment ago, movement to different sites.
Texas Game Wardens also responded to the flooding events in Uvalde, Kimble, Bandera, Real, Medina, Kerr, and Val Verde and Comal Counties. They responded to and had 83 evacuations and 147 rescues, including swift water and helicopter hoist rescues.
And they also staffed three local emergency operation centers, along with regional emergency operation center and the state operation center.
Over the eight counties that I just mentioned, law enforcement deployed the following assets: 120 game wardens; 12 search and rescue boats; 16 shallow draft vessels; as well as a helicopter with hoisting capabilities; a canine unit; and our peer support group members.
That concludes my presentation on the July 2026 flooding events.
We’ll have Colonel VanderRoest and Rodney Franklin here if you have any questions more specifically on state parks or law enforcement.
Happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Questions or comments?
I just, again, want to compliment the department for the way you’ve stepped up. And, you know, two years in a row. I mean, it’s a lot.
And very much appreciated and very much well known throughout the state how involved our department has been, and how instrumental we’ve been in providing relief to all these areas.
So, job well done.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you.
And before closing, I’d like to announce that our November 2026 meeting will be held not in Austin, but in cow town and where the west begins, Fort Worth, November 4 and 5.
And it will be held at the T&P Station.
So, looking forward to that.
More details to come.
Chairman, that concludes my presentation.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Thank you.
Anybody?
All right.
Thank you very much.
We will move on.
Work Session Item No. 2: Financial Overview.
We will have a briefing on Legislative Appropriations Request for Fiscal Years ‘28-’29.
And Reggie Pegues, I turn it over to you.
REGGIE PEGUES: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Reggie Pegues, Chief Financial Officer. And this morning, I’ll be presenting the Financial Overview for your consideration.
Before I begin the formal presentation, I’d like to briefly highlight an important topic not specifically covered in today’s materials.
Strengthening the long-term health of the department’s Game, Fish and Water Safety Account, Fund 9, remains a top priority going into the next legislative session.
Dr. Yoskowitz and I provided the Commission an update on this at the May Commission meeting, and we continue communication with the legislative oversight, including the upcoming submission of our Fund 9 report as required by rider.
And unless there are any questions, I’d like to go ahead and move into my formal presentation.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Please proceed.
Thank you.
MR. PEGUES: On this slide, you’ll see the financial topics we’re covering. The FY ‘28-’29 Legislative Appropriations Request, the FY27 operating and capital budget, our budget and investment policies, and finally, deposit options for 15 percent of boat revenues.
I do want to flag that the Legislative Appropriation Request is still a work in progress, so we’ll continue refining that.
The remaining items here will all come back to you tomorrow as action items.
First, I’ll walk you through the Legislative Appropriations Request, or the LAR.
The LAR is the agency’s formal funding request for the ‘28-’29 biennium, and it includes two main components. The first component is the baseline request.
The baseline represents the funding needed to maintain our current day-to-day operations, and it’s calculated by the Legislative Budget Board and the Office of Governor by taking our ‘26-’27 funding levels and then removing items considered one-time in nature.
And for this current session, this amount is further reduced by an additional 3 percent, which establishes our target for the ‘28-’29 biennium.
For us, that reduction totals $13.7 million, about $6 million of Fund 9 construction and the remainder relating to state park operations. And it’s also important to note that the sporting goods sales tax is excluded from this calculation.
It’s constitutionally dedicated to the agency, so it can’t be used for any other purpose. So, they typically exclude that from the calculation.
The second component of the LAR is exceptional items.
These are requests for funding items above the baseline that address critical needs we cannot meet within our existing budget, which I’ll go to in a later slide.
And here’s the calculation of the baseline funding request that I mentioned.
It’s composed of two pieces: general revenue of $594 million, which includes $470 million of sporting goods sales tax; and $318 of general revenue dedicated, which is your Fund 9, your Fund 64 – giving us a total of $912.9 million for the ‘28-’29 biennium.
This is basically the amount that we can’t exceed for our base request.
Anything above this will be considered an exceptional item.
Next, I’ll go into some of those one-time items that I mentioned were removed from our base calculation.
The largest category is $95.7 million in local parks funding, law enforcement vehicles of $23.9 million, $21.4 million for reduction in headquarters construction, non-law enforcement vehicles for coastal, inland, wildlife, state parks, at $9.1 million.
And there was a $7 million one-time pass-through for the Battleship Texas that was removed from the calculation.
And the final two categories combined for $6.9 million for new boats for the agency.
These items will… most of these items you’ll see resurface as exceptional items since we feel that there’s an ongoing need for these items.
Before moving on to the exceptional items, I’d like to highlight a couple of items that are funded in the base request – $91.7 million for construction and $25 million for land acquisition.
Both of these items are state parks related and funded exclusively with sporting goods sales tax.
Again, that can’t be reduced, so we were able to utilize that for some of the capital construction and land in our base.
Next are the exceptional items.
Again, this list is still in progress, and the final submission may differ somewhat from what you see here.
But currently, some of the items we have targeted are:
Restoration of the 3 percent, the 13.7 million that I mentioned.
Capital construction, which was pulled from the base which there’s an ongoing need for, especially on the Fund 9 side of the house.
Capital transportation– the items that were removed this one time– there still is an ongoing need for vehicles, so we typically request that as an exceptional item.
IT modernization.
We’ll focus on modernizing the agency’s technology systems and infrastructure. Basically, we’ve got some aging systems, some cybersecurity needs that we need to address.
New World Screwworm.
As mentioned, we’re looking at possible additional funding and positions to strengthen detection and response capabilities.
And the last category, agency exceptional items.
We’re looking at items not mentioned here that we’re finalizing that might appear on the final list that aren’t listed.
And so, we’re actively working on pulling those items together.
And our LAR.
Once we submit we’ll begin our budget hearings.
Our first budget hearing is September, which is prior to the next Commission meeting, so there may be some updates available.
So, this concludes my presentation on the LAR.
I’ll be moving next to the operating and capital budget for Fiscal Year 2007 [sic].
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Just one quick… when do you anticipate you’ll be finished with the LAR request?
What’s the timing of that process?
MR. PEGUES: The formal due date was the 21st, Friday, but there were some delays.
And in order for us to do the process, we have to receive our baseline numbers. And so, there were some delays in receiving our baseline numbers.
So, we’ll typically ask for an extension.
And so, we’re targeting somewhere in the first couple of weeks of September to have it submitted. We will have to have it submitted before our September 24 budget meeting, but that’s kind of our… probably two or three weeks for us to finalize it and route it through management for approval.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Thank you.
MR. PEGUES: Moving on to the operating budget.
This next slide is a crosswalk from the Conference Committee, or the General Appropriations Act, GAA, to the proposed 2027 budget.
For TPWD, the beginning point is Article VI, which is our base appropriation, and we have $537 million. We next add fringe benefits of $85 million. This includes state-paid, state retirement, group insurance, and Social Security, giving us a grand total of $622.1 million as our requested budget.
And our budget is somewhat dynamic.
So, in subsequent Commission meetings, in the monthly reports you receive you may see increases to the budget.
These are primarily adjustments for unanticipated funding, federal funding, unexpended balances from any prior years that we bring forward. But they will be presented to you.
Next, I’ll take the $622 million and I’ll slice it across different views for you. First up is… this slide corresponds to your Exhibit A. It provides an overview of our budget by method of finance.
Starting on the left, we have general revenue at $347.7 million.
This includes $225 million in sporting goods sales tax.
That’s about 55.9 percent of our total budget.
The next major category is Account 9, the Game, Fish, and Water Safety Account, at $153.1 million. This includes revenue from hunting and fishing licenses and boat fees.
Next, Account 64, the State Parks Account, which totals $44 million, and is primarily supported by state park fee revenue.
And finally, we have $70.2 million in federal funds, which includes sport fish restoration, at $18 million, and wildlife restoration at $30 million.
These four categories make up about 99 percent of our total funding. The remaining smaller items are shown on the slide for reference.
These are appropriated receipts and interagency contracts.
This next is a view of our budget by object of expense.
Salaries are the largest category, at $270.1 million, representing 43.6 percent of the budget.
Operating expenses are at 19.7 percent.
Next is our capital budget at $112.8 million, which I’ll go into more detail in a later slide. We also have the fringe benefits at $85 million, or 13.7 percent, and grants at $30.7 million. And this is primarily in our local parks at $30 million, for about 4.9 percent of our budget. And these categories show how our budget is distributed across the major types of expenses.
This next view is a view by division by dollar amount and FTEs.
And across both views, dollars and FTEs, you’ll see that law enforcement and state parks make up the largest components of our budget, getting us back to the $622.1 million and our current FTE cap of 3,269.9.
As mentioned, this is a breakout of our capital budget, beginning with land acquisition at $13.1 million. Construction at $54.6 million is the largest category, followed by state parks and minor repairs at $15.3 million. Information technology at $10.6 million. This includes laptop replacements, data center services, in-car automation, cybersecurity.
Next, transportation items for vehicles and boats at $16.1 million.
And finally, capital equipment at $3.1 million.
This is for our miscellaneous capital – mowers, trailers, radios. This is our capital budget for FY27.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Before you move on, it would be helpful to me and to the Commissioners when you present numbers like this, that if we could look at this compared to previous years just to have some sense for materiality and whether these numbers are extraordinary compared to previous years…
MR. PEGUES: I can add that for you.
CHAIMAN FOSTER: …or if they’re consistent.
MR. PEGUES: Yes, Sir.
CHAIMAN FOSTER: Thank you.
MR. PEGUES: Next, I’ll be reviewing the budget and investment policies.
These policies have not changed in several years, but a review is required each year. First up is the budget policy, which is shown in Exhibit C. There have been no changes since last year.
A few key points to highlight:
The Commission authorizes the Executive Director to execute the budget. Any budget changes over $250,000 other than federal funds and bond proceeds require approval from the Chairman, Vice Chair, or designee.
Donations over $500 must be accepted by the Chairman, Vice Chair, or designee, and are formally acknowledged at each scheduled Commission meeting.
And finally, funds may be used for any purpose permitted by statute or rule.
Next up is investment policy, which is your Exhibit D.
There have been no changes since last year.
A few key points to highlight:
The Public Funds Investment Act, or PFIA, requires state agencies to maintain an investment policy and conduct an annual review when depositing or investing funds outside of the state treasury. These requirements do not apply to funds that remain inside the state treasury, as those funds are invested by the comptroller.
Currently, all TPWD funds are in the state treasury, so these provisions do not apply at this time.
If TPWD ever deposits funds outside the treasury, the Executive Director would appoint an investment officer with one important exception: the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund is required by statute to be invested through the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company. At present, these funds are still held in the treasury.
And finally, deposit options for 15 percent of boat-related fees.
House Bill 448 from the 85th Legislature changed the statute to make this transfer optional rather than mandatory. Under the prior language, up to 15 percent of boat-related fees from Fund 9, the Game, Fish, and Water Safety Account, had to be transferred to the State Parks Account Fund 64 for cash flow purposes.
With House Bill 448, the transfer is now discretionary and can be made only when needed to address cash flow issues. At this time, Fund 64 is projected cash balances through Fiscal Year 2027 are sufficient, so no transfer is needed.
As of last night, there was one comment in agreement.
Staff requests that this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and action.
This concludes my presentation.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Thank you, Reggie.
Comments or questions?
All right, thank you.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Chairman, we just need you to authorize it be put on the agenda for tomorrow.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Oh.
Sorry, yes.
I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
Thanks for keeping me on track, too.
Fiscal year…
Next is Work Session Item No. 3: Fiscal Year 2026 Internal Audit Update and Proposed Fiscal 2027 Internal Audit Plan.
Brandy Meeks.
Thank you.
BRANDY MEEKS: Good morning, Chairman, Vice Chairman, Commissioners.
For the record, I’m Brandy Meeks, Chief Auditor.
This morning, I’d like to update you on our current internal audit plan as well as recent external audits and assessments.
I’d also like to explain our annual risk assessment methodology and present to you our proposed Fiscal Year ‘27 Internal Audit Plan.
So, this and the next slide show the status of our current audit plan. Please make note of the statuses in yellow font to the right.
Those are the projects for which we’ve made progress since last we met. As you can see, we are now in the field work phase for an audit of the selected pass-through grant, and we are also still outsourcing, of course, the audit of the job order contracting program. That project is well underway. In fact, I have a meeting with the vendor tomorrow afternoon.
And I believe they are very close to wrapping up planning and going to be heading into field work soon.
As far as our IT cybersecurity projects, we are in the field work phase for our data and records governance and controls advisory, part 1. This will be a five-part advisory.
Part one is going to go over email, Teams chat, and Co-pilot, as far as our data and records governance over those particular areas. So, you’ll see that in subsequent years, this particular project. And then completed since last we met is the IT asset management extended IT advisory.
We are also preparing for our quality assurance review, which will take place next year. It has to be completed by January of ‘27. And then completed since last we met, of course, is our annual risk assessment process and the preparation of our annual audit plan for next year. As far as external audits and assessments, the Department of Public Safety has performed a review of the criminal history record information accessed by TPWD from the DPS secure site.
Now I’d like to explain our risk assessment methodology.
So, Texas Government Code Chapter 2102 requires that we develop a risk-based annual audit plan.
And the way that we do that, and the way that it recommends that we do that, is to work with management to identify risks to the agency’s functions, activities, and processes to evaluate the probability and impact of the age risk would have to the agency’s financial, managerial, compliance, and IT processes and systems should the risk occur. And then to rank those risks according to the probability of occurrence and the likely impact to the agency.
So, our risk assessment methodology does follow Texas Government Code 2102.
First, we consider division-level risk factors such as: time since the last audit; turnover, both management turnover and staff turnover; budget; contract dollars; outstanding unremediated audit items; as well as performance measure results.
Next, we do meet with all of our division directors and other selected management to identify specific agency risks.
And we want to identify their activities and processes that are required for them to meet our agency’s strategic plan.
And then, of course, address and identify any risks to those activities and processes. And then, of course, we also want to understand any of their other top concerns within their division, agency-wide, any external concerns that they may have, or risks, as well as any issues they may be having with their IT systems. And then, of course, we bring all of our audit knowledge to the table, too, as a whole team.
My whole team works on this for about, I would say, three weeks solid to just bring any audit knowledge that we may have from doing the projects that we’ve done throughout the years.
We may notice other things that are going on in the agency.
And, of course, we want to make sure that that’s on our matrix for us to address. Then we evaluate the probability and the impact that each risk would have to the agency’s financial, managerial, compliance, and IT processes and systems, should that risk occur.
And together, the division-level risk scores and the impact scores result in a risk ranking of all identified risks.
So, in finalizing the audit plan, we then take that ranking and we think of possible audit and advisory projects that we could perform to address those risks. We analyze our audit resources and the expertise needed to perform those identified projects.
We also get with our COO and with our Executive Director, as well as we send all of that information to our audit subcommittee, and we just make sure we’re in alignment with top management and with the audit subcommittee on the direction to move for next year with our audit plan.
And so today we’re presenting our proposed audit plan for next fiscal year to the entire Commission for its approval.
So, this and the next slide show our proposed audit plan for next year.
As you can see, we’d like to carry over five projects.
We want to complete that audit of selected pass-through grant.
We want to complete part 1 of our data and records governance and controls advisory. We would like to also carry forward our audit of the Centennial Fund processes and controls, as well as the ethics and agency governance advisory. And then, of course, our outsourced job order contracting program audit will be complete probably within the first quarter of next fiscal year.
We’re also proposing six new assurance engagements.
We’d like to perform three state park fiscal control audits.
We’d also like to audit the financial resources, infrastructure, and state park key performance measures.
We’d also like to perform a review of our third-party vendor risks and controls, as well as audit our AP and travel reimbursement processes. We’d also like to perform an uninsured assets advisory.
In this particular project, we may need to either co-source or outsource if we need actuarial skills.
As far as IT cybersecurity advisories, we’d like to perform a backup and data recovery advisory, and we’d also like to do part 2 of our data and records governance and controls advisory, and that will cover our network drive.
And, of course, we also have our administrative projects.
We’ll be completing our Fiscal Year ‘26 annual report for our oversight agencies, performing our Chapter 59 review for law enforcement seizures and forfeitures, performing our semi-annual follow-up projects, and then, of course, our QAR will be a big project next year. And then it all comes full circle again.
We’ll do our annual risk assessment next year, and prepare our audit plan. We also budget some hours for any special projects, investigations, or liaison activities that happen throughout the year.
As of 5:00 yesterday, there were no comments.
And so, I would like to request that this item be placed on tomorrow’s agenda for public comment and action.
This completes my presentation.
I’m happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Questions or comments from the Commission?
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Commissioner Bell.
Just… I know over the years that we’ve been doing this you’ve had some concerns about staffing. So, you’ve got your process laid out for next year. How are you feeling about the ability of the team to support it?
MS. MEEKS: I think if we can remain fully staffed.
In fact, we just hired our lead auditor.
He should be starting on the 8th of September.
If we can remain fully staffed I feel very confident we can complete our plan. It’s when we start losing people that it makes it iffy.
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Well, we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
MS. MEEKS: Yes.
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Stay staffed.
MS. MEEKS: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Thank you very much.
MS. MEEKS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: If there are no further questions, I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Next is Work Session Item No. 4: Advisory Committee Rules– Recommended adoption of Proposed Changes.
And Mr. Craig Bonds.
CRAIG BONDS: Good morning, Chairman, Vice Chairman, Commissioners.
For the record, I’m Craig Bonds, Chief Operating Officer.
I’m presenting on a recommended adoption of proposed changes to Advisory Committee Rules. Commission Chair is authorized to appoint committees to advise the Commission on issues under its jurisdiction under rules that describe the committee’s purpose and tasks.
As you know, advisory committees have finite terms of four years unless the agency extends the termination date by rule.
Staff seeks the Commission to extend TPWD advisory committees for another four years. This last occurred in 2022, so the committees expired on July 1, 2026. Two advisory committees, the Game Warden Academy Advisory Committee and the Texas Statewide Trails Advisory Board, are statutorily required and not subject to the normal four-year tenure.
The Game Warden Academy Advisory Board is required to exist in order for the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to approve the academy’s training program. And the Texas Statewide Trails Advisory Board is required to exist in order for TPWD to receive federal recreational trails funding.
Staff also proposes to standardize committee member term links as follows:
Members will serve four-year terms from the date of appointment.
And members may continue to serve after their term expiration until the Commission Chair appoints a replacement. And this applies to all the TPWD advisory committees.
Staff seeks to rename the Wildlife Diversity Advisory Committee to the Wildlife Conservation Advisory Committee to clarify that the focus aligns with the changes that department has made to rename the Wildlife Diversity Program to the Wildlife Conservation Program.
The proposed changes reflect updated terminology that the Wildlife Conservation Program uses to describe its work in connection with the program’s maturation.
The changes broaden the committee’s scope to advise on issues related to furbearers, in addition to non-game and rare species as currently described in the rules. Since, the law distinguishes between non-game and furbearers and the Wildlife Conservation Program monitors and manages them as well.
Further, the changes provide that the committee specifically advises on matters pertaining to technical guidance and outreach with various individuals and entities, rather than just education and communication, to better reflect programmatic priorities regarding technical guidance with landowners and adult outreach efforts.
Overall, the proposed changes are intended to more accurately reflect the Wildlife Conservation Program’s purview and terminology to reduce confusion about its work.
The current and next slide lists the advisory committees proposed for continuation by relevant division, including the State Parks Advisory Committee and seven committees reflecting the disciplinary and stakeholder breadth under the Wildlife Division’s purview.
Two committees under the Coastal Fisheries Division, and one each for the Inland Fisheries, Law Enforcement, Executive, and Support Resources divisions, with the Accessibility Advisory Committee transitioning to the Human Resources Division this coming September.
As of yesterday evening, we have received five total comments– two in agreement, one disagrees completely, two disagree specifically. And the reasons for disagreement: one was not germane to the topic; and one comment opposed having the various different subcommittees underneath the Wildlife Division and preferred one advisory committee.
Staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
That concludes my presentation.
I’d be happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: So, you recommend a four-year term.
I assume that’s a change from previous...
What was it previously?
MR. BONDS: Previously it was a four-year term.
But there were specific dates– July 1 to four years later, June 30.
And what we’re basically saying is the four-year term would start upon appointment and then expire four years later.
And then the other change is there’s a nuance that they would be able to continue serving until the Chairman appoints a new advisory committee.
Therefore, there’s no gap…
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Right.
MR. BONDS: …which was important this year because we were able to seek some guidance from our advisory committees during the middle part of the summer.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Anybody, questions or comments?
All right.
Thank you.
If there are no further questions, I’ll place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Work Session Item No. 5: Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office Rules–Recommended Adoption of Proposed Changes.
And Mr. James Murphy.
JAMES MURPHY: Thank you, Chairman.
Good morning Commissioners, Chairman.
I’m James Murphy, General Counsel to the department.
And I’m here today to present rule recommendations associated with the efficiency review of the department’s Administrative Code.
All right.
So, the purpose of the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, or TREO, is to assist state agencies in identifying outdated and redundant regulations, and creating best practices to make agency’s rulemaking processes more efficient.
TREO reviews our rules, and those of other state agencies, and our procedures to reduce regulatory burdens, eliminate unnecessary or ineffective rules, and increase transparency for Texas taxpayers. This was established during the last legislative session.
It is in Government Code Chapter 465, and the office is housed within the Office of the Governor.
So, the process begins with both TREO and the department independently assessing our Administrative Code that’s located in Title 31, Part 2. And then we met to agree on an initial list of recommendations that we presented to our stakeholders.
Staff then presented the recommendations through three webinars in March to our advisory committees, took in that feedback, and then ultimately met again with TREO to finalize an agreed list of recommendations that I want to emphasize are all either supported by stakeholders or not objected to by stakeholders.
So, anything that our advisory committees thought was imprudent we removed from that list.
Some of these recommendations are going to need a little bit more stakeholder feedback or staff development. They were more at a conceptual stage. Some examples are some proclamation changes. So, you’ll see a little bit of flushing out as we go along with these.
And then lastly, we do have some statutory change recommendations that came out of this process.
Ultimately, that’s at the will of the legislature either this session or in future sessions. And if the legislature does in fact make any of those changes, of course we would tabulate that as part of the TREO process as well.
Lastly, I just want to mention that this is a very artificial intelligence driven process. Both the department and TREO used AI tools to assess the rules to look for areas of efficiency and improvements there.
So here we are on our first batch.
This is the second meeting I presented back in May on this.
Highlighted in yellow, we are at the adoption stage. We batched this just to make it manageable. This is a huge undertaking for our agency in that we had a lot of recommendations, and it was a whole review of our entire Administrative Code.
So, this was the first batch of chapters we heard in May.
This was Chapters 51, 52, 53, 55, 59, 60, and 61.
So, this presentation today is moving these hopefully to tomorrow for a vote on approval.
The next batch you’ll hear in my next presentation for permission to publish. These are our Fisheries chapters, Chapters 57 and 58.
We’ll then move to adoption in November for that one.
We’ll do a third batch. Those are our Wildlife and Resource Protection Chapters 65 and 69. We’ll do petition to publish on those in November and request adoption in January.
And then finally, we’re gonna sever out any of the statewide proclamation-related recommendations and just fold those into our usual cycle that we have a preview in November, permission to publish in January, and then ultimately request adoption in March.
Just think in terms of the public’s understanding of those changes; best to group that with that annual cycle that they’re familiar with.
So here are the results.
TREO put out a report.
We ultimately agreed with them on 160 total recommendations. 132 of those were identified during our self-evaluation. 28 of those were identified by TREO. You see the report there on the right on the screen. It estimates cost savings to the public at the number of rules that have been repealed or amended, and the word “reduction” that comes from implementation of the recommendations. They’ve tabulated 657 total rules with 158 of those being repealed or amended.
A little over 208,000 total words intact with a reduction of approximately 8,000 words there. And then a cost savings range of about $4.5 million to about $10.5 million, depending on your inclusion of market growth effects and all of that. I do want to emphasize, however, that these cost estimations are a little different than the costs that are articulated in your rule preambles. Those tend to be more about direct costs.
There is a little overlap there. But for the most part, what we’re talking about with these cost savings are either fee reductions or the reduction in the amount of time that the public has to spend obtaining approvals, interacting with government, understanding the rules at issue.
You know, every hour spent working to try to get a permit from the agency is an hour that they could spend elsewhere. And so that’s the thought process behind some of these economic effects that are estimated.
I will go through these.
You know, in the interest of time, I know we have a busy day today. You did hear these back in May. I will highlight a few areas that I think are particularly notable. But a lot of these are going to be, you know, simplifying language.
There’s statutory language in the Parks and Wildlife Code that we have quoted in our Administrative Code.
We’re then going to cite to the Parks and Wildlife Code to reduce that word count, reduce the complexity of our administrative rules, as well as when that statute changes. We don’t then have to come back and change the language in our Administrative Code.
Just a few things here.
On the second slide, I would mention on Chapter 52, this is our stocking policy. We are ultimately going to repeal the stocking policy. We think it’s more appropriate for a department policy. It regulates primarily the conduct of a department staff.
This was promulgated back in 1990. There were some irregularities in our stocking efforts, some allegations of favoritism and who was receiving those stocked fish.
And so ultimately, we passed this stocking policy back in 1990 – we being the Commission and department– so that the public could be assured that those public resources were being directed in an appropriate manner. We think that can still be accomplished through our department policy; provides that same direction to employees and that same clear guidance on corrective action for employees that do violate the policy.
In our finance section, I do want to mention there at the bottom we did implement a universal fee of $50 for all field trial and dog training events. That was an attempt to equalize those permits regardless of whether those activities occur on public hunting lands or on private lands. Just a standard fee there. So that is a nice fee reduction.
Continuing in that, we really… just primarily clarifications here throughout the rest of Chapter 53.
On our law enforcement, very similar. Just, you know, we find these small things that can be improved around this definition of the word “final conviction.”
Things like that that we know will improve enforceability and clarity for the public.
I do want to highlight here the controlled exotic snakes provisions in Chapter 55. When I presented this to you back in May, we talked a little bit about the responsibility of the local government to maintain records associated with this notification. What we want here is ultimately those with a controlled exotic snake permit to notify that local government, their first responders and their local animal control authority. So that when there’s a fire, when there’s a police event, there isn’t any lack of knowledge of what they’re walking into. Those dangerous snakes, of course, present some risk to our first responders.
So, trying to create an information sharing approach here. And when I presented to you previously, we had a requirement that the local government maintain records. We ultimately think that’s maybe pushing it a bit far. We’re putting that responsibility on the permittee to maintain those records. We think that’s more appropriate given our regulatory authority.
In our parks, you know, again, a lot of clarifications, simplifications of language. One thing that I do think is significant here is we did move one of our state park fees. We have that fee range for group overnight camping. We wanted to go ahead and align that with a lower fee amount.
So, a small fee reduction here for some of our park users.
A number of changes to our rules of conduct in parks. One thing I think is significant here is we had kind of a paper-based process associated with approvals for things like weddings and special events at our properties. We were going to make it clear that electronic documentation is appropriate here. We also had a lot of this going to Rodney as our State Parks Director. Ultimately, we now have a delegation opportunity to make that.
So, making it a little bit simpler for these special events at our parks.
More clarifications in Chapter 60.
Do want to mention here in Chapter 61 a change to our local park grant scoring criteria. This is the result of an opinion of the Office of the Attorney General raised some constitutionality concerns about our scoring criteria related to preferences for minority communities.
Ultimately, we’ve taken a look at those. We think there’s a way to get this on solid constitutional footing with a tweak to those scoring criteria while maintaining the purpose of this program, which is to direct funds to those local communities.
So, we don’t think it’s gonna be a very significant change, and that we fully expect the funding to still get out to those communities that need more outdoor space, more opportunity for those kids, but ultimately think we’re putting this on more solid constitutional footing in the face of that Attorney General opinion.
Three comments still as of this morning– all in agreement, no reasons provided. And with that, I request this item be placed on tomorrow’s agenda for public comment, Commission deliberation.
Certainly, happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Comments or questions?
Hearing none, I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
Work Session Item No. 6…
COMMISSIONER GALO: Chairman.
Oh, Excuse me.
And I don’t know if this is proper.
Commissioner Galo. I have just one question on the previous item of the advisory committees. Can I ask it now, or should I just wait till tomorrow?
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Yeah, you can.
Sure.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Okay.
Okay, well, I wanted to ask, is there term limits to these positions on these advisory committees?
And is that why you’re proposing to change how you… how not to have, I guess, set terms like, you know, from this date to that date?
MR. MURPHY: For sure, yeah.
And I’ll do my best Craig Bonds impersonation here this morning.
[ laughter ]
So, the short answer is that it’s not that the terms of the… there are term limits for an individual on a committee. They can be on a committee more than one term. But we do have a government code provision that makes all advisory committees expire by law after four years. So, we have to come back here every four years with the exception of the two statutory committees…
COMMISSIONER GALO: Yes.
MY MURPHY: …that Craig had pulled out there.
We have to come back every four years to you to reauthorize these advisory committees.
But ultimately a member can stay on a committee, you know, multiple terms if they’re, you know, continuing to participate and meaningfully involved on the advisory committee.
Craig, anything to add?
COMMISSIONER GALO: Well, it’s because you said that you would start the person’s term from the day they start.
And then, so isn’t that going to… you’re going to have off, maybe, terms? Like a little bit harder to keep track of terms. They won’t be uniform. I’m just asking because when I was first put on the committee I served an unexpired term. I knew I was coming on and I didn’t have a six-year term.
And then when that unexpired term finished, Governor Abbott gave me another unexpired term to complete the six-year one term.
And then I got reappointed again. But Governor Abbott asked… let me know that Reed Morian would be a holdover for a few weeks.
So, my next term would be lacking a few weeks, which of course is fine. But is that… are you trying to avoid someone maybe missing a few weeks of their term? I just don’t understand.Because at some point you just might have terms all over the place. And it’ll be hard to track when their term ends and the new term starts.
CRAIG BONDS: That’s a great question, Commissioner Galo.
For the record, Craig Bonds, Chief Operating Officer.
And I believe I’m tracking with you.
I understand your question.
And so, what I’m hearing you say is that if someone is appointed by a chairman during the four-year term, out of sync…
COMMISSIONER GALO: Out of sync.
MR. BONDS: …with their colleagues on the committee.
Because the advisory committees do sunset, so to speak, there is a finite date that the committees expire, I would expect that if someone is appointed partway through that four-year term, that once that committee expires they would need to be reappointed to start when the new cohort comes into place.
That’s my understanding.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Okay.
MR. BONDS: Of course, if I misspoke…
COMMISSIONER GALO: So, it might reset.
MR. BONDS: …we will look into that.
COMMISSIONER GALO: It might naturally reset is what you’re saying.
MR. BONDS: Yes, Ma’am.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Okay, that makes sense to me now.
Because I thought if this goes on, at one point you’re going to have terms ending and starting at all different times.
MR. BONDS: That’s right.
It would be chaos, wouldn’t it?
COMMISSIONER GALO: Exactly.
MR. BONDS: We want to avoid that.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Well, thank you for clarifying.
I appreciate it.
MR. BONDS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER GALO: Thank you, Chairman, for giving me that opportunity.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Any comments or questions on the TREO discussion?
If not, I will authorize staff to publish the rules in the Texas Register.
Thank you.
All right.
Next is Work Session Item No. 7: Environmental Rule of Transportation Projects.
MR. MURPHY: And I do apologize, Chairman.
I actually have back-to-back TREO presentations if you’ll indulge me on Item 6.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Oh, okay.
MR. MURPHY: So, I apologize.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Please proceed.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you.
So again, good morning.
James Murphy, for the record, General Counsel.
And I’m here to present on our second batch of rules associated with the Regulatory Efficiency Review of the department’s Administrative Code. And since you just heard this presentation, I am going to breeze through a bit a few of the introductory slides that talk about the purpose of TREO. But we’re here today to identify outdated and redundant regulations; create best practices to make our rulemaking processes more efficient. This is something that we have been working on really since the beginning of the calendar year in close coordination with the Regulatory Efficiency Office. And with the goal of reducing regulatory burdens, eliminating unnecessary or ineffective rules, and increasing transparency for Texas taxpayers.
Again, the process is the same as described in the last presentation.
It’s a collaborative process that involves stakeholder input.
And ultimately the recommendations that came from this were either supported by, or not opposed by, our advisory committees.
There could be a legislative component here this next session, but of course that’s at the discretion of the legislature.
This is our second batch here, highlighted in yellow on the screen. This is a permission to publish here today.
And then we would propose adoption in November.
These are our Fisheries chapters, the fisheries, oysters, shrimp, and finfish, which has been dubbed as of yesterday the “seafood platter” of rule proposals. We will then move to the permission to publish for batch three.
These are Wildlife and Resource Protection chapters, permission to publish in November, ultimately adoption proposed in January.
And then we will split out our statewide hunting and fishing proclamation-related recommendations, incorporate those into the standard November preview January-March cycle.
Here’s the tabulation I identified on the last one.
The take-home here is we have 160 total agreed recommendations that we are working through. And that’s why, essentially, we’ve moved this into a batching process, given the scope. So here in Chapter 57, our fisheries, we have revisions that reduce repetition of statutory language. That language stands alone and is in effect on its own terms in the Parks and Wildlife Code.
We’re doing some consolidation of a number of provisions, and ultimately trying to improve grammar and clarity for the public.
I’ve highlighted a few of these here that I think are significant.
The first is our Artificial Reefs Program. A little clarification that these material donation agreements are different from public reefing agreements. The MDAs, or Material Donation Agreements, are really more for those oil and gas decommissioning activities. Those rigs-to-reefs type programs are really the MDAs.
Whereas our public reefing agreements are really more for those public reef areas using things like our pyramid structures, other types of artificial reefs there.
Our ShareLunker program.
We did identify an opportunity here to improve survival rate for those largemouth bass, those big ones that we collect for their genetics. So, we’re going to allow the transport of those live fish in live wells from the water bodies to the weighing stations.
And ultimately, we have some requirements for disposal of that water to prevent inadvertent transport of invasive species like zebra mussels. So, I think we’ve struck the right balance there, and hopefully that will increase a little survivability for our big fish.
We do also… there was a recommendation here to have a graphic for our coastal waters boundary. This is a boundary that we use to, kind of, designate coastal bag limits versus inland bag limits, and season structures associated with fishing. And so, we were asked to put a map in.
We have this map here. But we also are going to have a rather lengthy road-by-road description as well. That’s necessary for law enforcement purposes if we ever get in court. That map’s probably not good enough. We need to have a specific description there in the rule.
On Chapter 58, again, similar types of proposed revisions here.
Given the role of the federal government in some of our commercial fishing, we do have a number of citations to the Code of Federal Regulations. We’re doing some clarifications on those just to make clear which version of the Code of Federal Regulations we’re talking about. That way we don’t have to change every time there’s a change in federal regs, and make that a little more clear for the public which federal regs are being incorporated here.
On Shrimping in Outside Waters: we just simplified this one provision around where the gear has to go, just clarified that it can be on deck for certain vessels.
And then our Licensed Buyback Programs we have for oysters, shrimp, finfish, and crabs. Just clarifying that funds need to be available for those to open up. And also, that we want to directly tie that to the management goals for each of those important species.
So just a little clarification there.
Cultivated Oyster Mariculture.
We do have a number of changes.
You heard earlier from Director Riechers about the success of our Cultivated Oyster Mariculture Program.
And so, these are continued improvements. Some of these are feedback we’ve received from industry that would make things a little bit better for them. And so, what we are having is electronic submission and approval opportunities for both subpermittee designation and for oyster transport authorizations. So just continuing to improve customer service by moving to more electronic options; giving a little bit more of a grace period for repairing lights and signals that have been damaged there on their mariculture area. We had 24 hours. You know, there’s a lot of reasons why, weather, otherwise, why that might be difficult to repair immediately.
We’ve moved that up to three days. Still think that that is going to ensure appropriate safety and marking. A little consolidation of some requirements.
As I mentioned before, the more clarity around some of the federal law changes.
And then one thing that’s, I think, is significant here on the last one is we did receive a request from industry to be able to return cultivated oysters that had gone to a certified dealer back to the location of harvest.
There are some instances where that’s a necessary and appropriate thing to do to continue to flush out or clean those oysters. And so, we’ve created a tagging documentation and reporting system that we think maintains chain of custody and documentation so that food safety can be ensured, but allow a little bit of flexibility to move those back to be resubmerged.
And with that, I request permission to publish proposed changes in the Texas Register for public comment.
Thank you so much.
Available for any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Do we have any comments or questions?
If not, I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission agenda meeting for...
Oh, sorry.
I will authorize staff to publish the rules in the Texas Register.
JAMES MURPHY: Thank you, Chairman.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: And to go back, just to clarify, so Ms. Halliburton won’t be angry with me.
For the items on Section 5, I will place those items on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
All right.
Next is Work Session Item No. 7: Environmental Review of Transportation Projects Memorandum of Understanding with Texas Department of Transportation, TxDOT – Recommended Adoption of the TxDOT MOU.
Ms. Laura Zebehazy. Zebehazy.
LAURA ZEBEHAZY: Yeah.
Great.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.
For the record, my name is Laura Zebehazy, Ecological and Environmental Planning Program Director within the Wildlife Division.
During this Commission meeting, staff seek the adoption of a proposed rule that adopts by reference the statutorily required Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, between Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, regarding the environmental review of construction projects.
Under provisions of Transportation Code Section 201.607, TxDOT is required to adopt a MOU with each state agency that has responsibility for the protection of the natural environment and for the preservation of historical or archaeological resources.
It also requires TxDOT in each of the agencies to adopt the memoranda in all revisions by rule, and requires an examination and revision of the MOU every five years. The MOU stipulates responsibilities of each agency, the information to be shared between the two agencies during transportation project reviews, and the review and commenting timeframe. As of today, the MOU has been revised accordingly, and adopted by TxDOT.
As stated previously, the proposed MOU is intended to implement the statutory obligations of both TxDOT and TPWD regarding a review of certain transportation projects. However, another intention of the proposed MOU is to continue to foster communication, collaboration, and cooperation between the two agencies.
I am proud to share that over the last five years, under the current MOU, TPWD and TxDOT successfully funded over a million dollars for conservation action projects by contributing to the understanding of barriers to pronghorn movement on the Marfa Plateau, supporting habitat restoration on three state parks, testing the efficacy of Texas tortoise translocation from areas slated for development, and evaluating swimming performance of rare fish to improve designs and specifications for road crossings.
And as of last week, the Native Prairies Association of Texas closed on the Blount Glade Conservation Easement using funding provided by TxDOT through the current MOU. This conservation easement will protect nearly 18 acres of federally threatened white bladderpod and state endemic Texas golden gladecress habitat in San Augustine County, one of the rarest habitats in Texas.
The MOU also establishes and supports our transportation liaison position, which provides enhanced service to TxDOT during the coordination and review of certain transportation projects, as well as administratively manages the conservation action funding.
As of 5:00 p.m. yesterday, TPWD has received three responses in favor of the proposed rule and no responses in opposition.
Staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
At this time, I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Anybody?
Are there any significant differences between this MOU and the previous one that we worked on?
MS. ZEBEHAZY: No, Sir.
It was actually a pleasant negotiation process.
It was fairly streamlined.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Those are always nice.
MS. ZEBEHAZY: Yeah, all the hard work was done five years previously.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Okay.
Thank you.
MS. ZEBEHAZY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Next, Work Session Item No. 8: Selected Deer Harvest Rules–Recommended Adoption of Proposed Changes.
Alan Cain.
MR. CAIN: Again, Commission, Chairman, for the record, I’m Alan Cain, Wildlife Division Director.
And this morning, I’ll be presenting a couple of proposals on deer harvest regulations.
The first proposal is in response to petition for rulemaking regarding the take of white-tailed deer in four North Texas counties include Collin, Dallas, Grayson, and Rockwall.
Specifically, the petitioner requested that staff amend the regulations to allow for the take of white-tailed deer with the firearm on properties enrolled in MLDP that are under a high fence or surrounded by a high fence.
In these four counties, current regulations allow for the take of white-tailed deer only by legal archery equipment in the whole county, and all seasons combined, and including properties enrolled in the Managed Lands Deer Program. These are the only counties in the state with these restrictions on method of take. And so, I wanted to provide a little context in the history of the regulations in Grayson County and these other four counties.
In 1961, the legislature closed deer season in Grayson County primarily because of complaints of firearm discharge near resident dwellings on Lake Texoma.
In 1984, the Commission adopted rules to allow deer hunting on the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge that borders portions of Lake Texoma in Grayson County, but restricted the hunting on the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge to archery equipment only.
That regulation stayed in place for 15 years, until 1999 when the Commission adopted rules that opened white-tailed deer season to all of Grayson County, but continued to restrict take to archery only during all seasons despite there being no biological justification to do so.
And so, by this time in history, the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge was known for producing some older age class Boone and Crockett quality bucks.
And so that would have been an interest for a lot of hunters pursuing those quality deer, especially archery hunters.
And so, from 2008 to 2021, the department received multiple petitions or requests to allow use of firearm during general season countywide. But because of strong public opposition, these proposals never came to fruition. Again, this year, we received that proposal. But it’s narrowed in scope to Managed Lands Deer properties enrolled in MLDP and surrounded by a high fence.
Staff support this request, and believe the narrow scope of the petition addresses the petitioner’s request and preserves the social and cultural aspects of the archery-only hunting on all other properties in these four counties. Staff agree with the petitioner’s justifications, and contend there’s no biological reason to restrict the take on high fence properties enrolled in the MLDP.
As a reminder, TPWD biologists set harvest recommendations and issue tags to properties enrolled in the Managed Lands Deer Program. Because this proposal is restricted to high fence property, there’s no biological impact to the deer population on the neighboring properties.
Furthermore, expanding method of take on these high fence properties provides landowners the tools they need to manage overabundant deer populations and prevent habitat degradation.
Lastly, it’s legal in these counties to use a firearm to harvest feral hogs, coyotes, small game, other big game, or exotic species, demonstrating that firearms can be used safely in these counties.
Staff’s proposal would modify the rules to allow for any lawful means for take of white-tailed deer on properties enrolled in the Managed Lands Deer Program provided the property is completely surrounded by a high fence not less than seven feet in height.
The department acknowledges social and cultural importance of the current archery-only harvest regulations for these four counties.
Requests to take… to allow for take by firearm has been a divisive topic among landowners and hunters in these counties for years, and for a diversity of reasons.
There are several common concerns that we often hear for opposition to this proposal that would allow for take of white-tailed deer by farm; safety issues with discharge of firearm being one of those.
Department notes, again, that firearm discharge is governed by city or county laws, and farms are used to harvest those other species I just mentioned and can be done safely. Some are concerned about impacts to free-ranging deer populations. But with a proposal restricted to limited to high fence there will be no impact on those neighboring deer populations.
There’s also some thought that poaching will increase if firearms are allowed for take of white-tailed deer, but that’s unfounded. Poachers don’t, by the very definition, don’t abide by game laws and whether that takes by firearm or archery equipment.
Finally, some are concerned this could lead to high fencing of properties in the area. However, the cost of high fence is expensive, running $50,000 to $70,000 per mile of fence and likely a deterrent for many landowners.
The vast majority of these reasons for opposition are not unique to these four counties, and can occur in any county in the state with a firearm season. And they don’t justify restricting take to archery-only, especially on the proposal which is limited to high fence MLD properties. Staff presented the proposal to the White-tailed Deer Advisory Committee on May 18, and the Committee supported staff’s proposal.
Additionally, staff held a scoping meeting on May 19 in Grayson County to gauge public interest.
There were 24 people in attendance, and of those 16 provided comment – nine being opposed and seven supported the proposal.
Okay, we’ll switch gears a little bit.
The next proposal addresses an oversight that unintentionally created a conflict with mule deer archery season and mule deer general season dates.
In 2025, the Commission adopted rules expanding the mule deer archery season to run a consecutive set of days in the Trans-Pecos, which is 62 days, and 56 days in the Panhandle.
The season structure created an overlap with the general mule deer season start dates because of natural calendar shifts.
To correct this season overlap between mule deer archery season and mule deer general season staff are proposing for the archery mule deer season to run from the Saturday closest September 30 through Thanksgiving day in the Trans-Pecos. And in the Panhandle, season will run from Saturday closest September 30 through the Friday immediately prior to Thanksgiving day.
Staff received a total of 27 comments – with 52 percent in agreement with the proposed changes, 26 percent disagreeing completely, and 22 percent disagreeing specifically.
Reasons for disagreement pertaining to the take-by-firearm on MLD properties include: safety concerns with firearm discharge creating a rule that benefits just a few landowners; or that high fencing will restrict deer movement. And reasons for disagreement with the mule deer season dates, the commenter just said there was no need to change that.
Staff request this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: So, you mentioned you had a public scoping meeting?
MR. CAIN: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Scoping meeting.
And at that there were 16 comments…
MR. CAIN: 24…
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: …nine opposed, and seven…
MR. CAIN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: What were their reasons for opposition?
Was it similar to this?
MR. CAIN: Same thing.
It’s for few… “special rules for a few landowners.”
“It’s a cultural thing.”
“We’ve always had archery hunting here.”
Safety issues.
“You’re going to impact the deer population.’
Those sorts of comments.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Okay.
MR. CAIN: Same thing we typically hear.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Anybody?
All right.
If there are no further questions, I’ll place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
Work Session Item No. 10: Fee for Exotic Plant Commercial Culture Permit– Dotted Duckweed…
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Chairman, it should be No. 9.
I don’t know how we jumped to ten.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Oh, sorry, sorry.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yeah, I don’t know how we jumped to 10.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Yes.
Work Session Item No. 9: Depredation Permit Rules– Recommended adoption of proposed changes.
And Alan has this as well.
MR. CAIN: All right, again for the record, Alan Cain, Wildlife Division Director.
And I’ll be presenting proposed amendments to the depredation permit rules. Under Parks and Wildlife Code Chapter 43, Subchapter 8, the department may issue depredation permits authorizing the take of protected wildlife that cause damage to commercial agricultural interests or pose a threat to public safety.
Under current regulations, authorized methods for taking terrestrial wildlife under a depredation permit are determined by species and, excluding alligators, are limited to centerfire firearms, rimfire firearms, or shotguns.
House Bill 2842 passed during the 89th Texas Legislative session, and amended the Parks and Wildlife Code to provide a mechanism for political subdivisions, state and federal agencies, public institutions of higher education, and property owners associations to address public safely and habitat impact resulting from an overpopulation of white-tailed deer in areas where traditional hunting might not be feasible or insufficient for population management.
While no regulatory changes were necessary to implement HB 2842, rule amendments are necessary to allow for the use of depredation permits in areas where discharged firearms is unsafe or restricted by local ordinances.
The proposed amendments would place that current species-specific restrictions with a general framework, allowing the department to specifically… to specify additional authorized methods of take, such as air rifles or by archery equipment, or something else, under a depredation permit.
The proposed rule language stipulates that means and method of take will be prescribed by the department as a permit condition.
These changes are essential to provide flexibility in addressing the take of wildlife under a depredation permit, as appropriate and necessary, and are consistent with other permits and authorizations, such as the scientific research permit where permit conditions are authorized by staff on a case-by-case basis to best fit the situation at hand.
Additional proposed changes clarify the period of validity of the depredation permit issued for agricultural damage, and streamline reporting by removing the requirements to document the number of antler points on a main beam for antlered deer taken under a depredation permit.
And lastly, it would remove… or eliminate language that’s either redundant or already in statute and unnecessary. Again, staff presented this proposal to the White‑tailed Deer Advisory Committee on May 18, and the Committee supported this proposal.
To date, there have been eight public comments – 75 percent in agreement and two disagree. The reasons for disagreement include:
One commenter said there was no normal training for firearm safety at airports. And another individual had concerns with mountain lions being included on the depredation permit. Just to be clear, depredation permits are not required to take of mountain lions. So, don’t need that.
So, staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
Questions, comments?
If there are no further questions, I will place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
And now Work Session Item No. 10: Fee for Exotic Plant Commercial Culture Permit – Dotted Duckweed – Recommended adoption of proposed changes.
Mr. Michael Tennant.
MICHAEL TENNANT: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners.
For the record, I’m Michael Tennant, Regulations and Policy Manager in the Inland Fisheries Division.
The proposed rules are housekeeping changes intended to keep fee rules accurate by adding dotted duckweed to fee applicability.
The fee is the same as the existing fee for water spinach, which is currently the only other exotic aquatic plant authorized for cultivation.
The total of two public comments were received for the public comment notice, with one disagreeing completely and one disagreeing specifically with the proposed rules.
The single public comment disagreeing specifically noted that the proposed fee appears unreasonably low given that substantial financial benefit to the commercial producer and the potential ecological risk if activities are not adequately managed.
Staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
That concludes my presentation.
And I’ll be happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: So, it does kind of raise the question of where in the world did we come up with a fee of $263?
MR. TENNANT: Well, I can speak to… the initial fee was established in… as $250 in 1984. There’s no information that we could find supporting the permit fee.
In 2004, there was a five percent increase across the board permit fee, and that gets us to the $263 permit fee.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Well, that at least explains that.
But…
[ laughter ]
All right.
Any comments or questions, concerns?
All right.
Thank you.
MR. TENNANT: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: If there are no further questions, I’ll place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Work Session Item No. 11: Request for Surface Easement – Orange County – Approximately 0.1 Acres at the Lower Neches Wildlife Management Area– Request Permission to Begin the Public Notice and Input Process.
Dr. Whitney Gann.
DR. WHITNEY GANN: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners.
For the record, my name is Whitney Gann.
I’m the Facilities Coordinator for the Wildlife Division.
I’m going to present a request for a surface easement in Orange County.
It’s approximately 0.1 acres at the Lower Neches Wildlife Management Area.
So, the lower Neches WMA is located in Orange County, as indicated there by the red star.
If we zoom into that space, you can see that the WMA, the Lower Neches, is made up of three separate units.
The Adams Bayou, the Nelda Stark, and the Old River units. And those are situated adjacent to Bridge City, Texas.
The lower Neches WMA comprises approximately of 8,000 acres near Bridge City, and this WMA consists primarily of marsh land.
The land was donated to Texas Parks and Wildlife by Mrs. Nelda Childers Stark.
And the area is known for its historic sites and birding opportunities. Orange County is requesting an approximately 0.1-acre easement to reconstruct the Lake Street pedestrian fishing pier that was destroyed by Hurricane Ike.
This fishing pier would include 16-foot wide, by 200-foot-long wooden construction piers supported by Class B timber piles.
31.6 cubic yards of 12-inch to 18-inch stone riprap would also be installed for shore protection.
This will provide additional public fishing and recreation opportunity at the wildlife management area. Outlined in red is the boundary of the old river unit of the Lower Neches WMA. And we can zoom in to southern part. And you can see outlined in yellow is the boundary of the proposed fishing pier reconstruction.
Staff requests permission to begin the public notice and input process.
And if you have any questions, I’ll take those now.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: So, the easement would be issued to the county, to Orange County?
DR. GANN: Mm‑hmm.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Okay.
Questions?
If there are no further questions, I will authorize staff to begin the public notice and input process.
Thank you.
Work Session Item No. 12: Land Acquisition – Burnet County – Approximately 27 Acres at Post Oak Ridge State Park– Request Permission to Begin the Public Notice and Input Process.
Mr. Ted Hollingsworth.
TED HOLLINGSWORTH: Chairman, Commissioners, good morning.
My name is Ted Hollingsworth.
I’m with the Land Conservation Program.
This morning I want to brief you on a proposal to acquire approximately 27 acres of land at the Post Oak Ridge State Park in Burnet County.
It’s about 70 miles northwest of where we are this morning.
It is the newest Centennial State Park. And it’s directly across the river from Colorado Bend State Park in Burnet County. The property is currently 3,118 acres, was acquired last year – again, our most recent Centennial Park acquisition– includes about two miles of frontage on the Colorado River directly across from the 5,300-acre Colorado Bend State Park. The planning and development is well underway, and we’re on schedule to open that fully to the public in 2029.
As you can see from the picture, there’s some really pretty live water, some beautiful views, some nice topography, and that frontage on the river. Currently, you have to get to the property by driving down County Road 105, which is just a traditional old Central Texas County Road.
It was asphalted at one time, but is now pretty rough and it’s not considered appropriate for State Park access. Burnet County is in the process of purchasing the right-of-way on which that county road lies from willing landowners. There’s only about six of those landowners, and they’re all expressed a willingness to sell at or below fair market value.
It’s about four miles of county road that we would need to acquire. It’s shown in yellow on this map. Once acquired, then we would take that road and upgrade it to a proper park road.
The pale blue road is County Road 105, which is in much better condition. And then TxDOT FM 1475 is in fine condition for the public to get to the new state park. Once the county’s completed that acquisition, we would purchase it from the county, if you approve the action, at their cost.
And again, the cost is not expected to exceed fair market value, and we would upgrade that access.
And staff request permission to begin the public notice and input process, and then bring this action back to you this item back to you for action in November.
And I’d be happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
I don’t hear any questions so I will authorize staff to begin the public notice and input process.
Thank you.
Work Session Item No. 13: Requests for Drainage Easement in Hays County–Approximately 1.2 acres at A.E. Wood Fish Hatchery.
Mr. Jacob Aston.
JACOB ASTON: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners.
My name is Jacob Aston, and I’m a Project Manager with the Land Conservation Program.
Today I’ll be presenting an approximately 1.2 acre drainage easement at the A.E. Wood Fish Hatchery in Hays County.
Here’s a county map showing Hays County indicated with the red star located in Central Texas. There’s a more zoomed-in map showing the fish hatchery located in San Marcos, Texas. The A.E. Wood Fish Hatchery was built in 1949, and named after A.E. Wood who served on the Texas Game and Oyster Commission.
The fish hatchery has a 33,000 square foot building for intensive culture operation and 50 plastic line ponds that provide nearly 47 surface acres of water. The hatchery is responsible for raising millions of fish each year for the stocking into the public waters of Texas.
The City of San Marcos requests a drainage easement that is approximately 2,100 feet long and 25 feet wide, totaling an approximate area of 1.2 acres. The easement is needed for the construction and installation of approximately 2,100 linear feet of 8-foot by 4-foot reinforced concrete box culverts which will divert water storm water away from the hatchery and surrounding neighborhood.
Here’s an example of those reinforced concrete box culverts that they plan to install. Here’s an overview, or outline, of the fish hatchery outlined in red. And zooming in is the requested easement in yellow.
As of yesterday at 5:00 p.m., we’ve received seven total comments – all in agreement.
And staff request this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and Commission deliberation.
That concludes my presentation.
And I’ll be happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: I have a question.
Is there any consideration being given from the City of San Marcos for this 1.2 acres?
MR. ASTON: Are you referring to damage fee?
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Well, just… you know, is there… we’re giving up an easement.
I was just wondering for any consideration.
Yeah, fee.
MR. ASTON: No.
Since it’s a public entity we will not be charging them a damage fee.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Okay.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: It also benefits us, Commissioner.
Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TIMMERMAN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: All right.
If there are no further questions, I’ll place this item on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Thank you.
MR. ASTON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Work Session Items Nos. 14-23 will be heard in Executive Session.
At this time, I would like to announce that pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 551, Government Code, referred to as the Open Meetings Act, an Executive Session will be held for the purpose of deliberation regarding real property under Section 551.072, personnel matters under Section 551.074, and seeking legal advice under Section 551.071, including advice regarding pending or contemplated litigation.
We will now recess for the Executive Session at 11:01 a.m.
[ gavel sounds ]
We’re adjourned.
Thank you.
BREAK FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Good afternoon, everyone.
We will now reconvene the Work Session.
It is August 19, 2026, at 2:17 p.m.
Before we begin, I’ll take roll call.
I’m Chairman Paul Foster.
Vice Chairman Bell?
VICE CHAIRMAN OLIVER BELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Doggett?
COMMISSIONER LESLIE DOGGETT: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Galo?
COMMISSIONER ANNA GALO: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner McCall?
COMMISSIONER JOHN A. McCALL: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Patton?
COMMISSIONER BOBBY PATTON: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Rowling?
COMMISSIONER TRAVIS B. ROWLING: Present.
CHAIRMAN FOSTER: Commissioner Timmerman?
COMMISSIONER TIM TIMMERMAN: Present.
All right.
We are now returning from the Executive Session, where we discussed the Work Session Real Estate Item Nos. 14 through 20, Centennial Parks Conservation Fund, Item No. 21, Litigation Item No. 22, and Personnel Matters Item No. 23.
For Item Nos. 14 through 16 and 18 through 20, I will authorize staff to begin the public notice and input process.
If there are any further questions, I will place item Nos. 17 and 23 on Thursday’s Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
Regarding Items Nos. 21 and 22, no further action is needed.
Dr. Yoskowitz, this Commission has completed its Work Session business, and I declare us adjourned at 2:18 p.m.