Conservation ahead as lawmakers adjourn
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
By: Edgar Miller

General Assembly maintains conservation funding despite economy

Conservation funding not only remained intact, but made gains as the N.C. General Assembly approved its budget for fiscal 2010-11.

The spending plan maintained $50 million for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and added $2 million for the Agricultural Development and Farmland Trust Fund (ADFPTF). ADFPTF had received $2 million in the first year of the state's two-year budget approved last spring, but was slated to receive zero dollars in the budget for fiscal 2010-11

Not only did the second-year budget adjustment restore funding to ADFPTF, it established it as recurring for the first time ever – meaning the ADFPTF funding will be in the base budget at the beginning of the next budget cycle. It's always easier to keep something that's already in the budget than to add an item that isn't there.

The budget also protects revenue streams for the Natural Heritage and Parks and Recreation Trust Funds, though it will tap the interest on invested trust fund money if more than $500 million in federal Medicaid assistance is not received as expected by January 1, 2011.

The land trust community owes special thanks to Senate President Marc Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney for their leadership on conservation funding, as well as Sen. Joe Sam Queen, Sen. Floyd McKissick, House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman and Rep. Pricey Harrison for their support of ADFPTF.

Farmland protection supporters lobbied hard for this funding, presenting a petition with over a thousand names in support of agricultural conservation to Hackney on Land and Water Conservation Lobby Day in May. The annual event, organized by the Land for Tomorrow coalition, saw its usual good turnout from a number of conservation groups, state agencies, local governments, hunting and fishing organizations, and others who back funding and policies to support land and water conservation.

Other budget highlights include the following:

• The budget will maintain state funding for the “Adopt-a-Trail” grant program and two staff positions in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Office of Conservation and Community Affairs (OCCA), including the Working Lands Coordinator position, which the Governor’s budget proposed to eliminate.
• The budget merges the OCCA with the Natural Heritage Program into the Office of Conservation, Planning and Community Affairs, and places that agency within the Office of the DENR Secretary. Five staff positions in the Natural Heritage Program will be funded this coming fiscal year from Natural Heritage Trust Fund revenues. The land trust community agreed not to oppose this item this year due to the tight budget situation, but does not want trust fund revenues to be used for operational costs long-term.
• The budget also appropriates $250,000 for the establishment of the “Sustainable Communities Task Force” to promote sustainable development, leverage federal sustainability/livability grants and to review how the conservation trust funds are being used to promote sustainable development.
• In a last minute development, the Senate Finance Committee added a provision to H1829, which primarily deals with renewable energy tax credits, to require that any land conservation project for which the NC Conservation Tax Credit is taken may only be used for one of the qualifying conservation purposes in perpetuity. This change is aimed at preventing land donated to qualified recipient organizations from being sold for development in the future. While land trust projects that qualify for the Conservation Tax Credit typically involve a conservation easement that permanently protects the conservation purposes for which the donation is made, the bill will prevent land donated for conservation - but lacking an easement - from being used for any purposes other than those that qualified it for the conservation tax credit  The General Assembly ratified H1829, including the Conservation Tax Credit amendment, on the last day of the session.

Visit our Policy Priorities page to download a full report on what happened with conservation funding and policies during the 2010 General Assembly.

Did you miss our report on Land and Water Lobby Day? Read the full story here.