LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe said Tuesday he would sign a measure to increase the state’s forest fire protection tax if lawmakers pass one, but he expressed doubts that such a bill would pass.
Legislative leaders said the idea was unlikely to get any traction.
The director of the state Forestry Commission, John Shannon, told a subcommittee of the legislative Joint Budget Committee on Monday that he favors raising the tax to pay for the restoration of more than a dozen firefighter jobs that were eliminated at the commission this month because of a shortfall in the agency’s budget.
“If the Legislature passes it I will sign it,” Beebe said Tuesday when asked about Shannon’s comments. “But that’s pretty tough on an industry that’s suffering. … If you’re going to add more taxes to a depressed industry, it creates a problem, and I would imagine before it’s all said and done most legislators will be influenced by that.”
The tax, currently 15 cents per acre, is a property tax paid by private owners of forest land. Shannon said Monday he believed the landowners who pay the tax, including timber companies, would support a 5-cents-per-acre increase if it would shore up the Forestry Commission’s ability to fight forest fires.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
On Jan. 13, Shannon laid off 34 employees, 14 of them firefighters, because of a $4 million shortfall at the agency. State finance officials have said the shortfall occurred because the agency reacted to declining revenue from the state timber severance tax and timber sales by improperly using federal grant money for ongoing expenses.
The agency also was counting the federal money twice, which inflated the amount of funding it appeared to have available, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration. The matter is being investigated by state auditors and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Legislature will convene for a fiscal session on Feb. 13. Non-budget bills require a two-thirds vote of both chambers to be considered during a fiscal session.
“I certainly think it’s premature to think that raising a tax right now is the solution to the problems that they’ve been having at the Forestry Commission,” House Speaker Robert Moore, D-Arkansas City, said Tuesday. “We need still a lot more analysis of what caused the problem.”
House Minority Leader John Burris, R-Harrison, said Beebe has said in the past he does not want to propose raising taxes to boost the Forestry Commission’s finances, and the Legislature is unlikely to do so without Beebe’s encouragement. He said he did not think Shannon was serious when he brought up the idea.
“If that’s the best he can come up with … he’s struggling. He needs to do better than that,” Burris said.
Shannon is scheduled to appear again before the forestry subcommittee on Thursday.
Burris said lawmakers want him to bring them a serious plan and “convince the Legislature that he’s the right person to lead this agency back into solvency.”
To say that the response of the agency has been disappointing would be an understatement,” Burris said.