28 The Mainline Policymaking & Advocacy Jewell School District in March filed a lawsuit in Oregon Circuit Court, challenging the newly-approved state forest habitat conservation plan (HCP), which will reduce by 35% the timber harvest revenues available to the school. The Jewell School District, serving 145 K–12 students in Northwest Oregon’s Clatsop County, lawsuit names Oregon Department of Forestry. The school is 100% funded by state timber revenue. Under the new HCP plan, that funding is anticipated to be slashed in half, losing $1 million or more. Although the state school funding formula could account for revenue changes, District managers are alarmed about impacts to the small school’s funding, its families, and local employment. The new HCP plan, which was approved by the Oregon Board of Forestry by a narrow 4-3 margin in March, increases the acreage of non-harvestable habitat across roughly 640,000 acres of state forests in Western Oregon. • AOL worked aggressively with forest and local government partners during the past several years of HCP development, in our unsuccessful mutual opposition to these restrictive and unworkable prohibitions of state forest management. We will continue lobbying at all levels of state government to overturn the damage, while seeking increased future harvest. “Jewell is heavily reliant on the timber revenues for two reasons,” said John DiLorenzo, attorney representing the school district. First, they need it for their funding stability. Second, the district does not want timber jobs to go away. Because when forest employment declines, then forest families leave the community and the school enrollment and education quality declines; or worse, the school closes and remaining students bussed to far-away schools. The lawsuit hinges on a requirement under the 2010 Northwest Oregon State Forests Management Plan, which is codified as an administrative rule under Oregon law. The administrative rule states that revenue from state forestland must be sufficient to cover the cost of implementing the Northwest Oregon State Forests Management Plan. The lawsuit challenges that current and future lower harvest levels authorized by the state forester are not high enough to meet that requirement. The lower new harvest levels under the HCP would put the Department of Forestry state forest program in a financial deficit, and would be insufficient to cover the cost of current or future necessary forest management. The department relies on one-third of state timber revenue to sustain programs and staffing levels. The other two-thirds goes to local governments in 16 state forestland trust counties, which decades ago deeded the timberland to the state under the now much-disputed terms of shared future timber harvest revenues. DiLorenzo said, “We believe the department has two choices… increase harvests… or, slash their budgets.” He said the main lawsuit objective is prompting a second look at the damaging HCP, to maintain harvest level, habitat, and school revenue. t School District Challenges State Forest Revenue Decline ›By Rex Storm, Executive Vice President
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