News

Proposed legislation offers long-term SWCD funding solution

The executive director of the Association of Illinois Soil & Water Conservation Districts (AISWCD) says a new proposal in the General Assembly offers a potential long-term funding solution for local districts.

Eliot Clay tells Brownfield the bill would impose a new per acre fee for taking agricultural land out of production.

“It’ll charge a $275 per acre fee on things like subdivision expansion, manufacturing, but the big one is around solar energy and grain projects and those kinds of things,” he says.

The fees would be collected at the county level then directed into a fund specifically for SWCD funding. District funding was cut by $4 million last year, and Clay says the state’s budget situation isn’t any better this year.

“We’ve been trying to figure out how we live within those means, but also where do we move forward as an organization given the tight budget status to both the state and potential loss of federal funding.”  He says, “How do we diversify the income we’ve got and do it in a way that’s politically feasible?”

He says this proposal not only offers a funding mechanism for conservation, but it also addresses the increasing loss of farmland.

“Roughly 60,000 acres a year that’s taken out in Illinois.”  He says, “We don’t want to do anything that’s going to inhibit economic growth, but at the same time, let’s figure out a mechanism that funds SWCD’s, which are really integral to protecting the existing farmland we’ve got.”

Clay says the legislation has received bipartisan support in Springfield and is expected to be called in committee this week.

AUDIO: Eliot Clay – AISWCD