Following ten months of negotiations with the governor’s office, members of the Council of Forest Trust Land Counties were briefed on three proposed solutions for revenue reductions projected to be caused by the habitat conservation plan for western Oregon state forests on June 28.
A group of five county representatives worked with three representatives from the governor’s office to hammer out the options, landing on reducing contributions to either the counties and special districts or Oregon Department of Forestry, or moving school districts in the counties from timber funding to the state’s special equalization fund.
The process began last August, when Governor Tina Kotek’s office reached out to staff from the Council of Forest Trust Land Counties (CFTLC) to initiate discussions about the economic impact of the proposed habitat conservation plan (HCP) on member counties.
The CFTLC selected one commissioner from each of its five regions, David Yamamoto from Tillamook County, Courtney Bangs from Clatsop County, Jerry Willey from Washington County, William Tucker of Linn County, and John Sweet of Coos County, to participate in small table meetings. Tillamook County Commissioner Erin Skaar replaced Yamamoto when he retired at the end of last year.
To begin the process, CFTLC commissioners discussed what they wanted to accomplish, agreeing that they hoped to see statutes changed to ensure that county governments’ revenues remained steady.
CFTLC staff then worked to develop forecasts of the revenue impacts to the counties using historical harvest and stumpage price data, showing a projected drop of a little over $22 million in revenue county and special district revenues across the 14 impacted counties.
The small group then solicited ideas from the CFTLC’s full membership, fielding 15 proposals for revenue replacement.
Those ideas were then pared down in conjunction with the representatives from Kotek’s office to the three that were presented to the full membership at the June meeting.
The first two options involved reapportioning state forest revenues from the current split that sees 63.75% of revenues go to counties, and special and school districts, and the remaining 36.25% directed to the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF).
The first option would see the share dedicated to counties and districts grow to 82% or $62.4 million, allowing their revenues to remain steady at the cost of reducing ODF’s percentage to 18% or $13.7 million, less than half of their current budget.
The second option would see ODF’s share bumped to 47% of state forest revenues, allowing the department to fully support its $36.5 million budget, but would cut county and district forest revenues to just $41.2 million.
The final option was to allow counties, special districts and the department to maintain current revenues by removing school districts from state forest funding.
Currently, school districts in each of the counties receive around half of state forest revenues allocated to their county, with the remainder of their funding coming from property taxes and the state school equalization fund.
Under the third proposal, school districts in the counties would move to complete reliance on property taxes and the state school equalization fund. This would allow ODF to receive $35.6 million in state forest revenues annually, while counties and special districs would receive $40.5 million.
Commissioners discussed the proposals, with all saying that of the options presented they would prefer the third. Sweet said that while commissioners might prefer other options they had previously suggested, the three put forward were the ones for which Kotek’s office felt they could gain legislative approval.
Sweet said that he thought the third option was the best as either of the first two would require the state legislature to allocate general fund dollars to either the counties and special districts or ODF to sustain them. By contrast, the school equalization fund is an existing funding source that provides ongoing funding to schools already and the increased burden would only represent .6% of the fund’s budget.
Other commissioners who had not participated in the small table group said that they would like to see further data on the proposals before voting on a recommendation.
A major question arose surrounding the four districts that currently don’t receive any funding from the stabilization fund, including Neah-Kah-Nie and Nestucca School Districts in Tillamook County. A CFTLC staffer said that department of education officials had preliminarily indicated that it would be possible to account for those districts and maintain their revenues through an in-lieu payment scheme.
Skaar said that her support of any proposal would be contingent on such a mechanism being in place to maintain the current educational and extracurricular opportunities for students in those districts.
The commissioners agreed that they would ask consulting firm Mason, Bruce & Girard to develop economic projections for the three proposals. They also agreed to convene a meeting of the full CFTLC in July to make a decision on which option they would endorse to allow the governor’s office to work on a draft bill that will need to be submitted by mid-September.
Most Popular
Comments / 0