The Government Operations Division amended the Game and Fish long sheet to restore $265,500 for temporary salaries and approved the agency’s budget as amended.

Senator Dwyer moved the amendment to add $265,500 to the Game and Fish temporary salaries line; Senator Burkhart seconded. Committee clerk Carol conducted a roll call for the amendment. Members recorded aye votes during roll call (Senator Sickler, Senator Ubelink, Senator Burkhart, Senator McGuire and Chairman Wannsick) and the amendment passed. Senators described the temporary positions as a summer workforce the department uses for work such as wildlife surveys, aquatic nuisance species control and enforcement; Brian Hosek, administrative services at Game and Fish, said the department “bring[s] them in at about $13.5 an hour to begin with” and described the hires as an important feeder program for full‑time positions.

The House had removed the $265,500 from the executive recommendation; the amendment restores it, and fiscal staff explained the funding split on the restored amount: roughly $77,000 federal and about $187,000 from the agency’s special fund. After the amendment passed, Senator Dwyer moved a due‑pass recommendation on the Game and Fish budget as amended; Senator Burkhart seconded. The committee recorded aye votes for the due‑pass motion in roll call (Senator Sickler, Senator Herberly, Senator Burkhart, Senator Dwyer and Chairman Wannsick) and the committee approved the bill as amended.

Agency director Jeb Williams described other house adjustments: a $60,000 one‑time addition to replace game‑warden firearms (split largely to the agency’s special fund with about $11,400 federal), ongoing and one‑time equipment and hatchery requests, and a $5 million request for wildlife habitat and private‑lands access (the agency said $4.1 million of that would be federal funds and $900,000 special funds). Williams also reviewed the department’s ongoing $800,000 biennial land acquisition appropriation and noted the list of potential parcels provided to the committee.

The committee’s votes moved the Game and Fish long sheet forward with the restored temporary‑salary funding and the additional one‑time firearm replacement funding the House had added to the agency’s package.