So, this is what cutting the state budget is going to look like.
The state Division of Forestry is now limping along after laying off 37 employees, about one-third of the agency’s workforce.
In one way, the cutbacks make perfect sense. Changes and reductions in the severance tax have resulted in a decline of $1.13 million in appropriations for this fiscal year. Forestry industry lobbyists worked with the Tomblin administration to try to fill the cuts—raising the severance tax was an option—but no agreement was reached.
Forestry’s biggest expense is in personnel so if the money isn’t there, cuts have to be made.
However, in another way the layoffs make no sense at all.
West Virginia is the third most forested state in the nation. Logging companies have historically worked hand-in-hand with Forestry to ensure that the rules are followed. That’s not going to be possible now because of the reductions.
Dan Cooley, who is in charge of the Division of Forestry’s Region 2 operations, has lost seven of his nine agents. “If we were by a job we would stop by and do preventive work. We also do a final check on every job. We would walk the job and make sure all their water control was in place,” Cooley told MetroNews’ Brad McElhinny.
“Now there are just two and myself,” Cooley said. “We can’t really function as it is now. Without us there, there’s no one to check reclamation on logging jobs.”
McElhinny reports that those responsibilities are supposed to be picked up by other agencies. “If there’s a complaint that logging has built up mud on a road, the state Division of Highways will handle it. If a complaint focuses on logging sediment running into a stream, that becomes a problem of the Division of Environmental Protection.”
Forestry is under the state Department of Commerce and Secretary Keith Burdette predicts the result will be agencies now responsible for logging will respond to complaints and issue citations and fines rather than working with logging companies to prevent problems in the first place.
“There won’t be anyone to say on a regular basis ‘Don’t do this. Fix this,’” Burdette said.
It’s understandable that the forestry industry did not want to absorb a higher severance tax, but it may be worse off in the long run because it appears to be losing regulatory certainty. Now those Forestry inspectors won’t be there to help keep loggers out of trouble.
Cutting the budget is never as easy as it sounds, particularly when every line item has the support of a constituency group. However, eliminating 37 productive foresters from a state payroll of over 37,000 is a questionable place to start.