LAND BOARD MEETING
Meeting from August 15, 2023
On August 15, 2023, The Idaho State Land Board met for their monthly meeting. Dustin Miller, Director of the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL), led the Board through a trust land revenue report and then moved into a fire season report and a land revenue forecast. Director Miller discussed that the numbers might not be accurate during the presentation due to recent activity; the numbers presented are from August 8, 2023. The emergency suppression fund sits at $11.7M, and one of the obligations of this fund is contracts for aircraft and engines. They estimate the daily aircraft rate at $2.75M, and the specific fire supplied is billed the hourly flight rate; their fleet has two types of planes and helicopters.
There are no IDL fires or deployed incident management teams, but there have been 198, with 152 human-caused burning of nearly 2,000 acres. The Department is seeing an increase in unwanted human-caused fires, up 30% this year already. Due to this, IDL has launched various media campaigns to try and increase awareness among the public. July saw a drying trend with above-average temperatures and lower precipitation rates, predicting a hotter longer fire season. The fire risk will stay elevated through September; certain areas throughout the state are at stage three (3) fire restrictions, Central Idaho is a stage one (1), and Coeur d’Alene is a stage two (2). IDL predicts that they will lose parts of their crew once students begin to return to college.
Director Miller then presented the FY25 IDL budget enhancement, which is as follows:
Cottonwood District Fire Program Modernization: $500,000 for four (4) engines Fire Operating Cost Increase: $250,000
Timber Program: $500,000 for construction of seedling tree cooling areas
Fire Program Staffing: three (3) part-time positions Good Neighbor Authority Staffing
Forestry Assistance Staffing
Fire Program Equipment
Recreation Program Equipment Technical Services Equipment Operations Equipment
The Department has until September 1 to send their budget to the Division of Financial Management and Director Miller will present the finalized budget to the Land Board at the September meeting. They are still finalizing numbers, but the ones presented today are in order of importance to IDL. Secretary McGrane asked about crew support and firefighter retention. Director Miller discussed their pay structure for firefighters and that they are continuously competing against the federal government. Still, they are looking at pay structures and trying to get creative on how to pay more. But if they increase to entry-level, they might have to cut some pay in the higher ranks. They are looking at seasonal housing for seasonal firefighters and additional benefits.
Craig Foss presented to the Board on IDAPA 20.04.01 – Rules About Forest Fire Protection. These rules impact anyone who owns forest land or operates on forest lands, and they outline the forest fire protections intending to prevent and mitigate wildland fires caused by those conducting a forest operation. They also look at timber lands for funding fire personnel, equipment, and emergency funds. This change is not a fee rule; the fees are already in statute. Mr. Foss also presented IDAPA 20.04.02- Rules about the Idaho Forestry Act and Fire Hazard Reduction Laws. These rules impact those who create logging slashes during harvesting forest products or potential forest products, and they established the standards for reducing fire hazards created when harvesting forest products or possible products. Mr. Foss specifically mentioned how fighting fires produces hazardous fuels. They are not aware of any issues with either the rule chapter or the Board motioned to send both chapters to the negotiated rulemaking process.
Michele Andersen, IDL Division Administrator, presented to the Board the idea of using Land Bank funds for employee housing as they have seen a significant increase in real estate costs, and IDL is struggling to recruit and retain employees due to this. They need to confirm the legality of using funds from the Land Bank for employee housing, potential acquisitions shall be limited to essential housing and resource protection for Endowment Lands, and they may use third-party vendors to assist with acquisitions. Attorney General Labrador stated his concerns about the real estate market and buying property. Ms. Andersen noted that they are buying unique properties and recently purchased one in Kamiah that they have converted into dormitory-style housing. They are trying to target markets with a lack of housing, specifically McCall. Governor Little stated that this is a problem many Departments have, and he doesn’t like using Land Bank funds for it. Attorney General Labrador says that his team will do a legal analysis, but he has initial questions about whether they could legally do it.
The next presenter was Alberto Gonzalez, Administrator at the Office of Information and Technology Services, and he discussed the growth of the office since 2019 and what they want to do to help IDL modernize. Forty-eight agencies have consolidated under ITS, and they offer several different services. They want to focus primarily on security and use security penetration tests. ITS has identified four significant efforts, threat detection/situational awareness, network segmentation, attack reduction, and the least privilege access control principle. Gartner did an independent assessment of ITS and found they had concerns about service delivery (remote and onsite), ITS costs, communication, and security. They wanted faster responses, onsite support, and more direct support to agencies. Gartner wanted them to ensure that citizen data and systems are protected and that ITS adapts to growing security threats. ITS recently reorganized, cleared backlog, and looked at its cost model and security. Many agencies don’t know what the next three years look like for their technology, and ITS wants to help them grow.
They want to include IDL in the next era of modernization by enhancing the security of state systems and enabling IDL to focus on its primary mission. The enhanced security would have dedicated cybersecurity personnel and an economy of scale for commodity tech and an economy of scale for employees. They would also build career paths for IDL employees interested in technology. Mr. Gonzalez discussed the work they did last year with ITD and how this prepared them for IDL. Their anticipated timeline is to have an early posting of ITS positions from January to March of 2024, then have the legislative decisions from February to March, and then by July, have all affected positions transitioned to ITS. Currently, sixteen (16) personnel at IDL would transfer to ITS. There might be some issues with Endowment Lands and timber, but they have invested a lot of money to make the ITS team agile, and IDL has many practices that work well, and ITS wants to leave these in place.
The last presentation came from Todd Wernex, Program Recreation Manager, who presented on proposed IDAPA 20.05.01 Rules About the Recreational Use of Endowment Lands. In April, the Board approved the request to start rulemaking, and so far, they’ve held two (2) public stakeholder meetings to review drafts of the rules and suggestions that have been taken. They have reached out to almost 2,500 stakeholders. The next step is to enter proposed rulemaking, this will begin on October 4, and they will accept public comment until October 25. They will also have a public comment meeting in Boise on October 11, 2023. They will present the rules to the Land Board in November before becoming pending and going before the Legislature.