Cuts Threaten Idaho Land Management Program Officials Say No More Can Be Trimmed From Agency Without Affecting Performance

Cutbacks to balance the state budget after major reductions to cope with severe revenue shortfalls a decade ago are threatening Idaho’s cash-generating land management program, according to land managers.

Lands Department Director Stan Hamilton told legislative budget writers on Friday that any additional reductions will affect performance.

The less than $11 million the department spends to manage the state’s 2.4 million acres of forest and range generates nearly $70 million in cash from timber sales, grazing fees, land leases and mineral rents and royalties. Two-thirds of that benefits public schools.

Gov. Phil Batt’s 2 percent spending holdback imposed last summer forced a $352,000 reduction in the department’s resource management programs.

Nearly 70 percent of that cut involved the elimination of temporary employees for timber management. Hamilton said he protected full-time workers because without them the cash-generating ability of the department would have been affected.

Cuts in operating expenses for lands, range and minerals management, he said, may have already undermined the handling of controversial issues like endangered species, lawsuits and unusual operating problems like hazardous material cleanup.”We struggle now to maintain existing operations,” Hamilton said.

In his 1996-1997 spending proposal for the department, Batt accommodated the top priority of $750,000 to continue cleanup of the Triumph Mine southeast of Ketchum.

But the governor put off for at least another year the No. 2 priority - a new Lands Department office in Coeur d’Alene, where agency workers are spread through seven different buildings including several old houses with safety code problems.

Instead of building a $2 million district office, Batt is calling for a $60,000 feasibility study on just how the state should approach the acknowledged need for new department quarters.