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Illinois conservation districts planning to push land conversion fee this fall

The executive director of the Association of Illinois Soil and Water Conservation Districts says the fight isn’t over when it comes to finding stabilized funding for the state’s districts.

Eliot Clay says a measure was introduced in the General Assembly that would’ve provided a new funding source for conservation.

“Every acre of ag land that was taken out of production would be assessed a fee of $67.”  He says, “That fee would go into an operations fund for soil and water conservation districts and basically create a sustainable funding source.”

He tells Brownfield the fee, to be paid by developers, drew support from both sides of the political spectrum.

“We keep going back to general revenue fund for this and it’s been a fight every single year.”  He says, “Not only did they like the idea, but many of them were also asking why is this fee not higher?”

The proposal was never called in committee, but Clay says he’s optimistic it could see action in the fall veto session.

“It’s curious to me that a lot of lawmakers are saying now that we have such a bad revenue problem and we’ve got this bill that seemed to have a lot of bipartisan support.”  He says, “So, I would just signal to folks that there is an idea floating out there.”

This is the third straight year that Illinois SWCD’s were allotted $4.5 million in the state budget, which is $4 million below where funding was three years ago.  Clay says it’s estimated the proposal would generate $4 million to make up for that shortfall.

AUDIO: Eliot Clay – AISWCD