After a short break, the Land Board is now hearing from state Lands Director George Bacon about state timber sale earnings. Gov. Butch Otter just announced that timing-wise, though several more people remain to present, the board needs to have a motion on the table by 5 minutes to 4. It's now 20 'til, Boise time. (As opposed to the time stamps on this blog, which are in Pacific time.) "All indicators show a flat market," Bacon said, and earnings appear to be tracking below rather pessimistic forecasts. "Timber remains a fairly volatile asset type," he said. "Our timber revenue has fallen sharply since 2007."

Bacon noted that the current projections, which forecast $12.8 million in timber revenue, are based on actual contracts and prices bid on public school endowment lands now, but aren't a "worst-case scenario." That would be that everyone goes out of business and no one pays anything on the existing timber contracts. At that, state Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna said, "Governor, if we're going to use a meteor-hit-the-earth scenario, then maybe we ought to argue that we don't need any reserve." Amid laughter, Otter asked Luna, "Is that a motion?" Luna said he keeps hearing worse and worse scenarios laid out to justify rejecting his school funding proposal, but the board should consider realistic projections that might justify approving it.

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