Farmers who lose crops to elk or deer would pay up to $600 to file a claim under a policy that the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider Friday. According to written administrative rules, the state will pay for an adjuster to assess damages. In actual practice, wildlife managers have for several years required the farmer to split the adjuster’s fee with the state, with the farmer’s share capped at $600, WDFW’s game division manager, Mick Cope, said. The Fish and Wildlife Commission voted two years ago to bring the written code in line with the department’s practice. Cope said the change was never made because of a technical error. Cope estimated 15 to 30 farmers were charged for adjuster services over the past two years. WDFW will reimburse those people, he said. The policy, though adopted in 2013, will come before the commission again as part of an overhaul of rules related to compensating farmers and ranchers for wildlife damage. The Washington Farm Bureau on Thursday sent an email to members rallying opposition to the adjuster-fee policy. “The department might argue that this $600 will not actually be paid by the farmer since it will be deducted from the final damage claim check issued by the state. But in very real terms it is an automatic $600 deduction off of each reimbursement check a farmer receives,” according to the farm bureau. Cope said splitting the fee discourages frivolous claims, which could cut into the pot of money WDFW has to pay legitimate claims. The compensation program has not been running out of money, he said. Farm Bureau director of government relations Tom Davis said filing a claim is a “hassle” for farmers, who must provide tax records and document yields in previous years. “To me, it’s an unnecessary slap to a farmer,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt the program (for the state) to pay the full cost of the assessment.” Farmers who have signed damage-prevention agreements or followed a WDFW checklist for preventing crop losses are eligible to apply for up to $10,000 in compensation. The damage must be at least $1,000. The commission meeting will begin at 8 a.m. Nov. 13 in the state’s Natural Resources Building, room 172, 1111 Washington St. S.E. in Olympia. The commission is scheduled to take public comments at 8:15 a.m. The commission is scheduled to take up the wildlife interaction rules at 10:30 a.m. Source - http://www.capitalpress.com/