Despite more than a year of preparation that has cost Pennsylvania anglers and hunters more than $1 million, an automated system for selling fishing and hunting licenses won't be up and running as planned on Dec. 1 when 2007 fishing licenses go on sale.

While the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and the Pennsylvania Game Commission have given the Allentown-based Computer Aid Inc. almost $1.1 million to orchestrate the change, going from handwritten to high tech licenses has proved more challenging than anticipated, according to Brian Barner, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's director of administration.

"We're dealing with a highly complex system and need to be sure it's working correctly, especially on the accounting end, since we'll be sweeping vendors' bank accounts. A full-scale rollout is not going to happen by Dec. 1. We hope to be ready for trout season."

Tomorrow, the Fish Commission will begin shipping paper licenses -- which cost about $75,000 -- to 1,000 vendors, who were informed of the delay only last week.

"We had planned to send out paper during the transition anyway," Barner said, "just as a backup."

Although CIA is managing the electronic changeover, Nashville-based Automated License Systems will provide the software, equipment and training of vendors. ALS will be paid 70 cents for every license and every stamp sold, making an estimated $3.6 million a year for the five years it is under contract to wildlife agencies.

The ALS system, which 16 other states have implemented, uses small terminals like the credit card readers at retail stores, except that they scan drivers' licenses. Vendors also can enter information on electronic keypads, especially for customers who don't have driver's licenses.

Besides streamlining the point of purchase process, ALS will revolutionize the way wildlife agencies get license revenues, eliminating what Barner called the "honor system" when it comes to vendors sending in payment. ALS also will enable agencies to cull data on customers, instantly.

"It will allow agencies to be more entrepreneurial, more businesslike," said ALS's Lynne Lange. "They'll have a better handle on numbers. They'll get to know their customers better."

There is no license surcharge to cover the cost of the automated system, although the legislature could someday enact one. That means agencies will pay ALS and CIA from their general funds. And while the cash-strapped Game Commission has made severe cuts in programs and sees no legislative movement toward a license fee increase, agency spokesman Jerry Feaser said the investment in automation ultimately will be worth it.

"In terms of marketing to hunters, in terms of collecting information about what hunters want ... the possibilities are mind-boggling," he said. "It will also mean we'll only have to ask hunters for their social security number one time and one time only."

The social security requirement, which is part of a crackdown on deadbeat parents, has always been a sore spot with outdoorsmen, especially hunters, although attempts to change the law have so far failed. While compliance is easy to avoid with handwritten licenses, it won't be possible with the automated system, Barner said.

"The social security number isn't stored in the driver's license. It will be entered in on the keypad and you won't get a license without it."

All data, which will be stored by ALS but owned by the wildlife agencies, will be more secure than with handwritten licenses, and available only to law enforcement and individuals with security logins.

"It's not much different than the data we already have on half a million boaters," Barner said. "What we're after is information we can use to survey anglers, to see where they want to fish and what else they want. We expect to conduct surveys right at the point of purchase, and to market by phone, too.

"An automated system will give us a data base and ways to look at data -- by things like age, gender and geographic distribution -- that we don't now have."

It also will be a boon to vendors, by eventually eliminating or reducing the bond they have to pay to cover the cost of paper licenses.

"There won't be any real need for that once they go on-line," Feaser said. "That will improve cash flow for a lot of vendors."

And it will improve cash flow for the agencies, which will receive fund transfers electronically. "We'll be able to sweep their accounts weekly if not daily," said Feaser.

Vendors still will make $1 on every transaction, just as they do now with paper licenses. "I think it's going to be efficient once it's in place," said Jeff Staaf of Poor Richard's Bait and Tackle in Erie, which was scheduled to be among the first vendors to try out the new system. Poor Richard's writes hundreds of licenses a day during peak steelhead season, a process that can take several minutes for each transaction.

"We were supposed to get a terminal in October, during our busiest time, but it never happened," Staaf said.