The Dane County Conservation Fund was established in 1990 to buy “natural, recreational, and cultural resource lands in Dane County.” It averaged about a million dollars for the first 10 years, and in a 1999 referendum 75% of Dane County voters approved expanding the program to $3 million a year. Most of the money can be used to purchase property outright, and 20% is set aside to be used as matching grants to other units of government in the county. For 2010, the program was reduced to $1 million, despite right-wing attempts to defund the program. It is part of the capital budget, and funded through bonds.
The State Journal asked most (though not all) county board candidates if we should continue to purchase land, though they couched it as “how much should we spend on land acquisitions.” Liberals typically got the question right – see Cynthia McKinney, Brett Hulsey,[1] and Kyle Richmond, and conservatives got it wrong. (For an especially egregious example, examine the eminently empty-headed expositions emanating east of Madison in Ye Olde District 19.)
Now is the time to spend money on the Conservation Fund. The 2010 budget cut it to $1 million, but also penciled it in at $5 million a year in 2011, and in fact $5 million a year until 2019. For 2011, the question is not “should we hit $5 million”, it is “should we exceed $5 million?”
First of all, this is basic Keynesianism: when the economy is depressed, the government kickstarts activity. And as a local stimulus, taking vacant lands off the market and injecting capital into the local market, could be pretty effective: we take some pumpkin patches off of T.Wall’s hands, and he can turn around and use the money to move another development project forward. That creates new value, and new property taxes, more than making up for the value that’s taken out of the tax base by the conservation land. Even more importantly, that puts people back to work, which supports other property values and helps to improve the overall health of the county through ways I don’t need to get into.
The second reason to buy now is that property prices are low. In fact, the reason a government should think about NOT acquiring property in a downturn is that “fair market value” might be too low. The CDA’s actions against some Southside property owners shows what an awful dilemma this can present. It was a great deal for the taxpayer, but it undoubtedly screwed some property owners through no reasonable fault of their own creation. If Dane County can find willing sellers, we’re going to get once in a generation bargains on parcels that we want to preserve.
“But wait”, I hear you say, “Dane County lost its AAA bond rating. Doesn’t that mean we ought to cut spending?” No, not when it comes to the Conservation Fund.
First, we’ll swallow our outrage at the idea of having our policy dictated to us by credit rating agencies – the same snakes that fiddled while the financial system burned down around them. Then, we’ll note that in practical terms, the difference between a AAA and an AA rating is fairly negligible.
Most importantly, the best way back to a AAA rating is to restore economic growth, and the absolute best tool Dane County has in that regard is the quality of life in the region. We need to attract employers and employees to the area, and what brings them here is not the tax rate, but what kind of life they can live here. That means good schools, good infrastructure, and good natural spaces.
I often tell the story of graduate student recruiting for the Computer Sciences department, which I claim is a reasonable proxy for recruiting employees. The single best tool I have in convincing people to accept the UW’s offer over another university’s, beyond the quality of the faculty, is that Madison will have a Platinum biking rating. That’s the context in which we should be viewing our Conservation Fund, beyond the fact that we should be preserving open spaces for future generations. We should have the most aggressive conservation fund in the state, if not the midwest. We want employers to be able to tell potential employees that conservation areas are highly valued here, because that will make it easier for them to recruit the best candidates.
So yes, now is the time to spend with the Conservation Fund, and we shouldn’t wait until the economy improves. In fact, if there’s a time to slow down on the Conservation Fund, it’s during “boom” times. For one, during “boom” times, the county pays more for land, and unless it’s a critical piece that’s under imminent development pressure, it may be better to take a pass. Second, the capital budget encumbers the budget of future years. If the county loads up on debt during “boom” years, it’s then stuck paying debt service during the “bust” years, when revenue is down. If you assume that the economy is periodic or cyclical, it’s better to take on debt in the “bust” years, so the bulk of the payback happens in the easier boom years, and then slow down debt in the boom years so the bust years are more manageable.
The first 2011 budget memos and outlines are prepared in July. Please let your Dane County supervisor and the County Executive know that you support fully funding the Conservation Fund in 2011. It’s important for our short-term future, and critical for the long-term future.
[1] Just as an aside, I’m staying neutral in the Dem primary for District 77, so just because I said something nice about Brett Hulsey doesn’t mean I’m against the other four candidates. Hesselbein wasn’t interviewed for the WSJ series, and the others weren’t County Board candidates, so I didn’t write about their positions.
