The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today adopted changes impacting the agency’s license-issuing agent program.

The Game Commission recently evaluated that program, partly because changes in how licenses are sold significantly have impacted issuing agents via reduced license sales opportunities and increased business costs. The goal of the assessment was to find ways to decrease costs and requirements for those license-selling partners.

That’s resulted in several changes.

Previous regulations – which predate the availability of internet sales and on-site, in-person license printing – set the annual issuing agent application fee at $500. The board reduced that to $200, a move that also eliminates the need for a rebate program that allowed new agents to recoup some of their first-year costs.

Previous regulations also required an issuing agent applicant to maintain an $18,000 bond, an amount that dates to a time when the Game Commission sent paper licenses to agents. The bond was intended to cover the value of that paper stock and license and permit fees collected by the agent.

The board reduced the annual bonding rate to $11,000 to better reflect the amount the agency might need to collect today.

Additionally, the board authorized reducing the annual minimum sales requirement from 50 to 25 license products per year per agent, while also allowing mentored hunting permits to be included in an agent’s sales figures.

And finally, the board eliminated the Nov. 1 to March 31 application window for issuing agent applications. Allowing applications year-round, something made easier by new technologies and processes, gives issuing agent applicants greater access without creating any unreasonable burdens on the Game Commission.