[ODF_Private_Forests] ODF Update from Marvin Brown

[WEEKS Kevin]

State Forester Marvin Brown sent this message to Oregon Department of Forestry employees Friday.

Kevin Weeks
ODF Agency Affairs Office
(503) 945-7427
________________________________________
From: BROWN Marvin D
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 9:42 AM

Dear Fellow Employees,

There have been several significant events of late and we wanted everyone to be aware.

You know that the ballot measures to retain legislatively adopted tax increases passed.  That has taken some pressure off the need to reduce state budgets.  At the same time, the most recently released revenue forecast projects a continued decline in revenue and the legislature is debating how to deal with that.

The forecast suggests a negative balance for this biennium of a little over $100 million.

There is a special legislative session occurring this month and we may be asked to propose additional cuts to help make up the shortfall.  Most of what I hear suggests they are looking at a number of options and hopefully any impact on our department will be somewhat small.

Also, right now, there are no significant policy issues before the special session that would involve Forestry, but it has been a good opportunity to keep up with some key contacts.

Even though we are not currently dealing with new budget cut requests, we have recently moved ahead on some additional reductions that have been planned for this biennium.  Once reductions in the operating programs were implemented we began looking at administrative areas and have made decisions on how to reduce spending in those functions.

Unfortunately, they involve vacating or leaving vacant some administrative positions, in addition to curbing other expenses.  All of this has been initiated, including the notification of affected employees.

I’ll say again that this has been an extremely trying time for the entire Department.  Yet I couldn’t be more proud of how everyone has dealt with such difficult challenges.

Clearly we haven’t been able to continue providing the level of service we would like, but everyone has stayed highly productive and I feel we remain a “can do” agency.  My sense is that all of you are working hard to keep morale up and your outlook positive.  I thank you very much for those efforts.

On a much more upbeat note, the Board of Forestry has authorized us to proceed with the Gilchrist lands purchase and we hope to close in just a few weeks.

Last session, with the much appreciated help and support of Governor Kulongoski, the legislature authorized us to use economic development bonds that will be repaid from Lottery receipts.  We have enough funds to initially purchase about 43,000 acres and a non-profit partner, The Conservation Fund, has agreed to purchase an additional 25,000 acres that we will also manage and eventually repurchase from them. These are all lands that without our purchase would likely become fragmented over the coming years, causing fire problems and making management for other forest benefits less and less likely.

There remains a little over 30,000 acres that we would also like to purchase at some point, but for now we are adding a great 68,000 acre Ponderosa-lodgepole pine forest to our state forest system……the first new state forest in nearly 70 years!  Doug Decker, Project Leader, working with many other field and staff personnel did a tremendous job seeing this through…….very well done!

In other state forest news, our long and arduous journey to complete a new forest management plan and habitat conservation plan for the Elliott State Forest has entered a new, and hopefully, final phase.

The State Land Board and the Board of Forestry agreed to set a due date for obtaining habitat conservation plan approval from the federal government by December, 2011.  If that doesn’t happen they directed that we would operate under a management plan involving endangered species take avoidance instead.  To be prepared for this possibility we will spend the next two years modifying the plan we have been working on, and instituting endangered species surveys that will be necessary to comply with take avoidance.

Finally……I hope you all get a chance soon to meet our new Administrative Division Chief Satish Upadhyay….I hope you took note of Jeanne Davis’ reminder to start nominating fellow employees for our achievement awards….I hope we get some mountain snow pack….quickly……and I hope we all have a great 2010!

Take care and thanks.

Marvin Brown