House Agriculture Committee
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Bills discussed (1)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
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HR1012
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HR1012”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
0:00
this week, y'all, and I apologize for having to call this meeting today, but I will explain to you before I go to the other end of the table that Wednesday is Farmer's Day, and we'll have quite a contingency of farmers here in the halls and in the committee rooms of the Capitol, and when we do this, we try to pass a resolution honoring our farmers in the state of Arkansas. In order to have a resolution, it needs a favorable vote out of the Ag Committee.
And since we didn't meet last Friday, we had to call a vote to run this resolution today so that if it does pass, then it can be read across the House floor on Wednesday, the day that all the farmers will be here. As far as announcements, yes, we will start meeting on a regular basis of Wednesday and Friday. It looks like Wednesday that Representative Patterson is going to run his mold, anti-mold bill, which might be controversial.
And I understand from Representative Smith that he's about ready to refile or file another bill on his veterinarian, horseshoeing, tooth-floating bill that we have heard once before that we may want to hear again. And then there's two or three other things you see on the agenda that Will Thiele and his time allowed. Let me
also remind you, I know that we haven't met in a while, but next Wednesday at 10 o'clock we will be taking committee pictures.
Wear your cleanest tie. Okay? Get one out of there. As the boss always says, he has to keep these in the refrigerator to keep them from spoiling sometimes. But wear your cleanest tie. Okay? Any other announcements with anybody on
Speaker 3
1:48
the committee? If not, I will turn it over to
Representative John Burris
Unverified
1:59
Vice Chairman Burris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And when you are situated and ready, you are recognized to explain your resolution.
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
2:08
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'm assuming that everybody on the committee has this House Resolution 1012, and it's a fairly simple resolution. I think it may be a duplicate of everything, something that we do every two years, and it is committing Arkansas farmers for their vital contributions to the security and economic well-being of the state and the nation and for producing the food and fiber
that is essential to the health and security of the citizens of this state and the people throughout the
world. Pretty much self-explanatory. Mr. Vice Chair, I'll take any questions.
Representative John Burris
Unverified
2:46
Thank you, Representative Brown. Does anybody have any questions? Representative Meeks? I just have a motion. All righty. Anybody have any questions? All right. Representative Meeks, what is your motion? Mr. Vice Chairman, I move we do pass. All right. We have a motion to do pass. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you.
Unknown speaker
3:11
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Committee.
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
3:42
I said this was going to be a very short meeting, and it is, but we have, is Mr. Shannon here, John? Oh, there you are. Guys, John Shannon with the Forestry Commission, we have scheduled him two, maybe three different times, and the weather has just, it's just killed us, John. You understand that, I hope. But we have asked him, and he's been good enough to come back today. If we would, let's give him ten minutes or so, John, whatever the least amount of time you can take, and
Speaker 9
4:07
tell us what the Forestry Commission does for agriculture and for the state of Arkansas.
Speaker 12
4:15
Hey, Mr. Chairman. I'm John Shannon with the Forestry Commission, and I'm glad to talk about that at any time. I'm really here today to work with Representative Patterson on the practice of forestry bill. But if you'd like me to take a
Speaker 11
4:27
minute and talk about the Forestry Commission, I'll do that, sir. Now,
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
4:35
let's save that bill until Wednesday, if that's okay. We'll save his bill to Wednesday, but if you would give us just
Speaker 12
4:40
a couple minutes or whatever about the Forestry Commission. Sure. And most of you, if you know the Forestry Commission at all, you know it because of firefighting,
and that's when we make the news. The firefighting last year was really at a pretty dangerous trend moving upward the last few years, and acres burned and total number of fires. Volunteer fire departments are our great champions. we love them they help us out a lot we rely on them particularly to save homes while we work on the forest fires if you have volunteer fire departments in your districts and they have not worked with the Forestry Commission something has
really gone wrong because we have provided fire trucks to many hundreds of fire departments across the state so if it's not in your district but doesn't sound familiar please please talk to me and we'll get to work on that Forestry Commission works with private landowners who own forest land and just don't know what to do with it. And we help them with the technical management prescriptions, write a management plan, and that plan is step number one before you can participate in any Farm Bill conservation program.
It starts with a plan written by the Forestry Commission. And we wrote more in 2010 than in any year in our history. So even though the fire makes the news, the forest conservation management work is really key. We own a state forest, Poison Springs State Forest in Camden. I wonder if any member here is from Ouachita or Nevada County. Okay, well, you probably know about Poison Springs State Forest. We pay a dollar an acre a year in lieu of taxes, and the county judges appreciate that.
We've been selling timber on that state forest for about 55 years, and the loggers and their families appreciate that just had a timber sale the other day and although the prices are down like 40 percent from a few years ago it was still up 10 percent from the last sale we had so you know I'm praying that the prices start going up now if you're buying the timber you want it to stay low but if you've got a if you got to manage the Forestry Commission budget you know which is extremely difficult in this market we you know we need those timber sale
proceeds so let's hope the market picks up a little bit we'll have sales throughout the winter we also operate and and you have a 22,000 acre state forest all to yourself until deer season during deer season you got some company and there are people who line up to get their camping spot so we don't charge for camping but but folks for a couple generations now have been camping at the state forest during deer season and they don't want a camping spot they want their camping
spot so we try our best to accommodate everybody we own a nursery just east of North Little Rock Bauckham nursery it's been there half a century I think we've grown 1.3 billion tree seedlings or like McDonald's selling hamburgers we've passed the billion mark reforestation in Arkansas starts at Bauckham nursery and I'm really pleased that the market there is picked up we'll probably sell this year every tree seedling we grow which is tremendous so that's sort of a nutshell what the Forestry Commission
does we have law enforcement we've got dispatch there's lots of other things we can talk about if you folks would like to thank you mr.
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
8:13
chairman thank you John I know that was quick and brief but does any member of the
Speaker 13
8:19
committee have any questions yeah Mike thank you mr. chairman I'd just like to tell the new members here that if you have any fire departments that's in your area that needs any help or need some new equipment or some better equipment this is a man to talk to because he can get you fixed up they do an excellent job
on trying to help people get better better their equipment or facilities so I appreciate everything you do mr. John thank you sir I can really echo
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
8:43
that myself he works great with rural fire department especially during ice storms and trying to get the right equipment in the right place, John. I commend you all for that. Representative Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, John.
Speaker 17
8:56
And we used some of your equipment Saturday. I was helping put out a grass fire just down the road from
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
9:01
my house. I wanted to ask you, and it may not be you're the one to deal with,
but there are some people in South Arkansas that noticed an increase in their timber tax. Is that something that's tied back into the fire protection services, or can you explain it to me?
Speaker 19
9:19
Do you have an understanding of that? Yes, sir.
Speaker 12
9:23
There is a forest fire protection tax that was set at 15 cents per acre back in around 95, something like that. And it's for privately owned forested acres.
I wish we could charge the Ouachita National Forest, but we can't. It's privately owned acres. So it's not changed since around 1995. And when you get your tax statement from the county, it will probably say timber tax. MR. It does. MR. Okay. That's the forest fire protection tax. That's just too long an aim to put rather than timber tax. Now, if a volunteer fire department is organized, and I think the term is as a fire protection district. MR. In the area where you own property?
MR. Yes, sir. MR. Okay. MR. kinds of ways. But under state law, if you're organized as a fire protection district, they are empowered to have their own fees per acre. So if you have a constituent landowner who says his tax went up, it's not the Forestry Commission, and we don't get that money. And who set that tax? Is that the independent
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
10:30
fire district that did that? Yes, sir. Or is that a county rule? I mean, I've got several people in Washtenaw County that's been talking about their timber tax going up, and I
I said, well, I'll try to find out, has there been any new legislation? And the Bureau said, no, nothing's been done since 1995. I said, well, why did it just now kick in? Is that the
Speaker 12
10:52
reason that they've upped the fee then, you think? Well, they may have initiated a fee. It could have been probably zero before. Yes. But they may have started a fee because fire department budgets, you know, in rural Arkansas are terrible. Right. You know, and even collecting their dues is, you know, it's really tough to get that collected. I agree. But if they're a fire protection district, then they can work through the county and assess a fee.
And apparently we're starting to see some
Speaker 25
11:16
of that. Yes, we are. And I wanted to find out what the cause of that was because
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
11:21
I've been getting a lot of complaints about it. I said, well, I'll try to see what it is. But then do those districts get to
Speaker 12
11:29
set their own fee? Is that what you're saying? I believe they do. Now, you know, there could be one other change, Representative. Maybe that constituent owns more forested acres. Right. Maybe he was growing soybeans and he planted it to trees. If that's the case, then he's paying $0.15 per acre for more acres.
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
11:45
But it's still $0.15, and so why are they seeing the increase again? Where will that increase show up on that tax statement is what I'm trying to say? Well, I've
Speaker 28
11:54
not seen one of the tax statements. I guess it would be lumped under the timber tax, but the money will go to their local fire department and not to us. Well, how do we know that that local fire department is going to get that money? Well, I know a few fire chiefs, I believe, they know their way to the courthouse. Yes, sir, but I'm... I think they'd get the money.
Speaker 12
12:16
Hey, if I can talk just for another second about that tax. That tax was a nickel an acre until around 95. And then it went to 15. And the tax was triple the 15 cents. And I think I was a young pup state forester then, and the question came to me, how much more money will that raise? and I estimated about $1.5 million. So our general revenue was cut $1.5 million. So even though the tax was tripled, it did not increase the Forestry Commission budget. Right. And then does this
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
12:46
tie in with Act 833 money to the fire department?
It does not, does it? They're not related, sir. No. Then I've got to ask my fire department, I'm a board member on there, where that money is coming in then because we've got Anthony Timberlands, Murphy Timber, a lot of large holders that have, and we've had our department out there fighting fires for them, and so has the Forestry Commission gone out, you know, with their dozers and everything. But we do get some monies from them, I would suppose, so I need to find out how that's actually getting back into
Speaker 12
13:20
the coffer. You know, sir, it's really a pretty sticky issue because everybody loves their fire departments.
I mean, really, people go vote at the firehouse. MR. And they eat catfish there, too. MR. It's an important part of the community. And landowners don't like to be taxed twice. MR. I know. MR. You know? So it's ñ I love my friends, and I'm with my friends on this issue, but, I mean, it's a tough, tough deal. MR. Well, government has to have taxes to run. I agree.
Speaker 19
13:43
And thank you again for allowing me, Mr. Chairman, for these questions. MR. Thank you, sir. Thank you. MR. Representative Edwards, you have
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
13:54
a question? MR. I do. Sir, can you speak a little bit about some of the efforts?
I'm going to make an assumption before I get into the actual question, but, I mean, forestry is also a very valuable part of the history and the economics of this state for smaller landowners as well. Can you talk a little bit about how smaller landowners can specifically benefit from what your agency does? Sure.
Speaker 11
14:22
And I'm glad to say I'm one of Representative Edwards' constituents,
Speaker 12
14:26
and he brags about Cammack Village every time he introduces himself.
That's me. I'm Cammack Village. Some people think that we work mostly for the big timber industries or that the big timber companies mostly provide our money. That's not the case. Most of our money comes from general revenue. So, I mean, we like the timber industries. They pay the timber severance tax. We love it, but, you know, the relationship is not as close as some people think. Any small landowner who is invested somehow in his forest, even if it's just paying his
tax every year, needs forest protection, you know, fire protection. And we provide that. I don't care if you're international paper or somebody who owes 40 acres, you know, near Scott. We provide the same level of protection. And if they need tree seedlings, we sell them, too. But they, and mostly the smaller owners, who just don't know what to do with their land. And I want them to grow wealth on their land, you know, not just pay taxes on it. So without cost to the landowners, we go and write prescriptions for them.
And if they need timber cut, we give them a list of people who are buying timber. If they need herbicides applied, we get them a list of the local contractors who do that work. So we work with private landowners just every day. And,
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
15:48
Mr. Chairman, I think that is a reason I asked the question was that point is very important. We have a lot of property owners in this state. You don't have to be big. You can be very small. And I've known many people who've benefited from the things
that my distinguished constituent from Cammack Village has so well put.
Speaker 12
16:08
So thank you for being here today. You know, people think forestry doesn't have much to do with the delta. But the delta is where the action has been in reforestation the last 10 or 15 years. And those are the landowners. I mean, if you've grown soybeans your whole life, you don't know at all what to do. But, you know, for lots of reasons, the farmers have wanted to get into planting trees instead and get some farm bill financial assistance to get that done. And all that starts with a local Forestry Commission employee.
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
16:42
I think you're so right, John, especially in the Delta, that truth be known, back
in the 50s and 60s when so much farmland was cleared, if the truth be known, probably some of that land should have never been cleared for row crop farming. And you see a lot of it now going back into trees and whatever. That land that's a little bit
Speaker 28
17:01
less productive for crop production. Sure, sure, that's what I'm getting. That's what's moved back into trees. Thank
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
17:07
you so much for coming today. Do I see any
Speaker 28
17:11
other questions? Representative Stewart may have a
Speaker 12
17:14
story to tell you during the break, because I bumped
into a very bright young guy in Washington about a week ago, and I always ask these folks, are you from Arkansas? And the kid said, yeah, but you never heard of the town. I said, well, try me out. He's from Kirby. He said, man, I've been to Kirby. I know all about Kirby. And a little crossroads town. I said, and the state legislator there let me think of his name, a really good guy, Randy Stewart. The young boy said, that's my dad. Good story. John, you're welcome to
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
17:44
come back at any one of our meetings.
You're always welcome. Anything else for the good of this committee? What's that? Oh, yeah, he said, Representative Patterson said especially Wednesday. Come back Wednesday. Let me make a correction on a message that I gave out a while ago. The staff person here, Ms. Tammy, has requested that we be here at 9.50 for pictures. This Wednesday. Day after tomorrow. If nothing else, we stand adjourned.
Agenda
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Speakers
Representative Jerry R. Brown
Unverified
Speaker 3
Representative John Burris
Unverified
Speaker 9
Speaker 12
Speaker 11
Speaker 13
Speaker 17
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
Speaker 19
Speaker 25
Speaker 28
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified