Conserving Arizona’s Future

SUMMARY OF KEY PROVISIONS:

Conservation Reserve

This initiative creates a Conservation Reserve of approximately 694,000 acres consisting of Educational Reserve Lands, Permanent Reserve Lands, and Provisional Reserve Lands. Lands in the Conservation Reserve are restricted against “development” and required to be managed in a manner consistent with “conservation.”

·        Educational Reserve Lands may be conveyed to the Board of Regents on its request for research and education. Building on these lands would be exempt from the limit on “development.”

·        Permanent Reserve Lands may be conveyed without provision or consideration to a county, city or town or to a “qualified party” if the land is located in the vicinity of a state park or wildlife area.

·        Provisional Preserve Lands may be conveyed to a qualified party, agency of the United States or nonprofit organization organized for the purpose of conservation if the true value is provided through monetary or nonmonetary forms of consideration.

Any disposition of land from the Educational Reserve, Permanent Reserve, and Provisional Reserve will be restricted against development, will be used in a manner consistent with conservation, and will be subject to reasonable public access.

Board of Trustees

The initiative creates a seven-member Board of Trustees to oversee the management of state trust land as well as the distribution of the Conservation Reserve lands. 

The members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate and serve four-year terms.  Board members would be required to possess the following:

·        Substantial experience with matters that are within the scope of the board’s authority

·        A majority shall have “substantial involvement” in the public schools

 Change To Current Process For Disposition of State Lands

·        Board given the authority to prescribe a method for determining highest and best bid.

·        Exempts from the requirement of sale to highest bidder lands for public or private rights of way on, over, and across the said lands, including for roadway, railway, trail, drainage, flood control, or utility purposes. Board given the authority to grant rights-of-way for non-monetary considerations.

·        Plans for the use of state trust lands are required to be done in conjunction with the county, city, or town which they are located in accordance with all applicable ordinances, rules and regulations of the county, city or town.

·        Allows the Board to designate any part of the state trust land for conservation purposes to an agency or political subdivision of the state if the monetary or non-monetary consideration that has been or will be received for all of the trust land that is subject to the plan is at least equal to the true value of the land (definition of true value prescribed). 

Trust Land Management Fund

Provides the Board of Trustees the authority to transfer state trust land monies into a Trust Land Management Fund as follows:

 1.      If the book value of the permanent funds managed by the Board of Investments is less than seven billion dollars an amount up to five percent of the monies that otherwise would have been deposited in the permanent fund averaged over the five immediately preceding fiscal years.

2.      If the book value of the permanent funds is more than five billion dollars an amount up to eight percent of the monies derived by the rentals, interest on installment sales, and distributions from the permanent fund averaged over the five immediately preceding fiscal years.

 Prescribes that the Management Fund shall only be used to supplement funding for the administration and management of state trust lands provided by the Legislature.

 Designation of Conservation Reserve Lands

Designates an estimated 694,000 acres to the Educational, Permanent, and Provisional Reserves. Provides the Board the authority to make corresponding adjustments to the legal descriptions.

ATRA POLICY CONCERNS:

Earmarking Revenue

For decades, ATRA has expressed concerns about earmaking revenues outside the appropriations process through what is commonly referred to as “ballot box budgeting.”  Conserving Arizona’s Future is one of many in a long line of initiatives that have been placed before Arizona voters in an attempt to guarantee funding for a program or agency that receives annual funding from the Legislature.

Every interest group that receives annual state general fund appropriations would opt for guaranteed funding levels that are not subject to legislative review. However, earmarking revenues and creating dedicated funding mechanisms does significant damage to the state’s ability to do comprehensive budgeting and handcuffs state policymakers ability readjust budget priorities over time. 

Regrettably, determining state budget priorities at the ballot box has become so commonplace in Arizona that much of the flexibility to annually develop a state budget has been stripped of the Legislature.

Deferring Major Public Policy To An Appointed Board   

In recent years it has become increasingly popular to combine efforts to earmark funding outside the state’s appropriations process with the creation of an appointed board to oversee the management of those funds. The creation of the board, in this instance the Board of Trustees, accomplishes two goals: First, after side-stepping the Legislature, it creates the impression that the board will fill the fiduciary responsibility of providing on-going oversight of the agency and funds. Second, the appointed board allows the proponents to dictate and control the membership of the board through a narrow set of criteria for participation.

Conserving Arizona’s Future would transfer authority and management over Arizona’s 9.3 million acre state land trust and some of the two billion dollar permanent fund to an appointed body. Such a significant grant of policy making authority, as well as appropriation powers, should not be vested in an appointed board.