County Conservation Districts Face Hard Times

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

Nobody is immune from the recession. Ask county conservation districts.

Recently, the Berks County Conservation District was stripped of nearly all of its county funding as the county commissioners decided to end the “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) between them and the district.

The move has resulted in five people being laid off and the district having to scramble to find another home for its operations.

Karl Brown, executive secretary of the Pennsylvania State Conservation Commission, said the situation in Berks is a unique, worst-case-scenario as most districts continue to have close working relationships with their counties.

“As far as the action of the county commissioners, that is not happening consistently across the state,” Brown said.

But that’s not to say that other conservation districts aren’t facing hard times.

Many, in fact, are seeing devastating cuts to their budgets along with big drops in fee collections that threaten services across the state.

“Conservation districts have three significant sources of revenue, state funds, county funds and fees. All three of their major funding sources are squeezed now,” Brown said. “County commissioners, right now, are looking at everything in their budgets. As times get more and more strained, people ask the question, why are we doing this or that?”

Conservation districts operate as independent government agencies that receive financial assistance from the county and state; although some mostly support themselves through various fees they charge for their services.

MOUs were developed, Brown said, after the districts started branching out beyond agricultural issues and developed closer working relationships with their counties.

A recent survey of 60 districts found that 27 of them operate largely independently with their own budget and employment services. Another 30 districts have employees on county payrolls. Three districts have a combination of both.

But every district receives at least some form of county and state funding, though it varies from county to county.

The Lebanon County Conservation District, which does not have an MOU with the county in place, has seen its county funding go from $300,000 to $100,000 during the latest budget cycle.

It’s a big hit to the district’s $1.3 million budget said Chuck Wertz, director of the Lebanon County Conservation District.

Various line item funds the county provided, such as funds for farmland preservation, have been eliminated and instead rolled into one block appropriation.

No positions at the district have been eliminated, but Wertz said it will be challenging to provide the same level of services customers want.

“The bottom line is, we can’t sustain that,” Wertz said. “Our contingency will be to ask the community what services they don’t want, to see what programs will probably go.”

Erosion and sediment control reviews are big revenue streams for conservation districts.

In Chester County, fees for services, largely from these reviews, have decreased 27 percent over last year.

Roughly 70 percent of the county’s revenue comes from fee collections.

Along with that, the district is likely getting less money from the county.

“It’s dramatic,” said Dan Greig, executive director of the Chester County Conservation District, who attributes much of the decrease to the decline in housing.

“We recognize that we’re going to be in some financial difficulties in 2009 and 2010,” he said.

Statewide funding for conservation districts is also in trouble.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection each contribute funds, $1.6 million and $3.6 million respectively, to county conservation districts.

The proposed budgets by both Governor Ed Rendell and the state Senate will cut the combined funds, Brown said, by around $1 million.

He has urged districts to diversify their operations and branch out into other areas in order to better sustain themselves in an economic downturn.

In Westmoreland County, conservation district employees are involved in a number of programs, including one to improve the county’s trail system and educational programs and tours to get the public involved.

They have also learned to partner with other agencies to share resources and expertise to solve problems.

“We learned a long time ago that the district, even with 16 people, was never going to solve every problem,” said Greg Phillips, district manager. “So we have learned to partner.”

Still, in counties where resources are thin, opportunities to diversify operations can be limited.

“I don’t think that there is any magic bullet,” Wertz said. “We can’t exactly do things that we are not delegated or contracted by the state to do. We have certain obligations we are required to fulfill, such as erosion control. We do lots of educational programs and provide opportunities and we try to do those at a reasonable cost to the public.”