The effects of fiscal pain at the Pennsylvania Game Commission aren’t theoretical anymore. They’ll be felt by employees starting Thursday, when Bob Wesoloskie, chief of marketing, merchandising and outreach, and Theresa Alberica, coordinator of Project WILD, will be furloughed along with four or five seasonal employees.

They could be just the first casualties felt by the agency. Facing a multimillion-dollar budget hole, the commission is reviewing laying off another four or five seasonal employees by June 30; another 69 positions across the state could be vacant by July 1 as agency leaders consider whether to leave positions unfilled as employees retire.

This situation wasn’t unforeseen or impossible to prevent; it’s only through inaction that our state legislators have allowed it to reach this critical mass.

In August, deputy executive director Rich Palmer warned that the commission was facing a budget deficit of $15 million for the current fiscal year — a gap that is expected to grow to $36 million by fiscal year 2019-20.

Palmer also presented a proposal that included five years worth of fee increases that would take hunting and furtaking tags to $39. The current fee is $19

A proposal by state Sen. Chuck McIlhinney, R-Bucks County and vice-chairman of the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee, is basically a counter to Palmer’s idea and limits the fee increases to a single year and a price of $29.

McIlhinney’s $29 is not unreasonable, especially when you consider that hunters would have to go to Hawaii to find a cheaper resident hunting license than Pennsylvania’s. The last time license fees increased here was 1999, when adult resident hunting and furtaking tags were raised to the current cost of $19 from $11.75.

It’s clear that something needs to be done in the face of what would be a damaging hemorrhage of staffers at an agency that employs fewer people today than it did in 1999, and is tasked with managing 1.5 million acres of state game lands as well as policing hunting and furtaking activities throughout the state.

The agency already has cut major projects and programs to try and stem the fiscal bleeding. A new visitor’s center at Pymatuning Wildlife Management Area in Crawford County has been put on hold. Habitat projects have been scaled back, and improvements to the state’s elk range are being put off. Executive director R. Matthew Hough has said that even the commission’s popular pheasant stocking program is now vulnerable to cuts.

McIlhinney’s office estimates that his proposal would raise an extra $12 million for the commission through the increased tag fees, and the increases would not affect the price of junior or senior licenses.

In Pennsylvania it takes an act of the Legislature to increase the cost of hunting licenses. For the state to continue its legacy as one of the top hunting and trapping destinations in the country, our lawmakers are going to have to step up to the plate and do something.