S-1013.1 _______________________________________________
SENATE BILL 5574
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State of Washington 54th Legislature 1995 Regular Session
By Senators Hargrove, A. Anderson, Snyder, McDonald, Owen, Long, Rasmussen, Swecker, Heavey, Morton, Deccio, Johnson, Loveland, Hale, Sutherland, Strannigan, Palmer, Moyer, Hochstatter, West, Drew, Haugen, Quigley, Bauer and Roach
Read first time 01/26/95. Referred to Committee on Natural Resources.
AN ACT Relating to the return of state forest board transfer lands back to counties; amending RCW 76.12.030; and adding a new section to chapter 76.12 RCW.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec. 1. RCW 76.12.030 and 1991 c 363 s 151 are each amended to read as follows:
If any land acquired by
a county through foreclosure of tax liens, or otherwise, comes within the
classification of land described in RCW 76.12.020 and can be used as state
forest land and if the department deems such land necessary for the purposes of
this chapter, the county ((shall)) may, upon demand by the
department, deed such land to the department and the land shall become a part
of the state forest lands.
Such land shall be held in trust and administered and protected by the department as other state forest lands. Any moneys derived from the lease of such land or from the sale of forest products, oils, gases, coal, minerals, or fossils therefrom, shall be distributed as follows:
(1) The expense incurred by the state for administration, reforestation, and protection, not to exceed twenty-five percent, which rate of percentage shall be determined by the board of natural resources, shall be returned to the forest development account in the state general fund.
(2) Any balance remaining shall be paid to the county in which the land is located to be paid, distributed, and prorated, except as hereinafter provided, to the various funds in the same manner as general taxes are paid and distributed during the year of payment: PROVIDED, That any such balance remaining paid to a county with a population of less than nine thousand shall first be applied to the reduction of any indebtedness existing in the current expense fund of such county during the year of payment.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 76.12 RCW to read as follows:
A board of county commissioners of a county shall have the option of reacquiring total control of all or part of these state forest board transfer lands, within their respective boundaries, that are currently being administered by the department of natural resources. Sixty days after notification is given to the department of natural resources, the respective counties will regain administrative control of these lands, and all preexisting agreements pertaining to these lands shall be considered void. By the end of this sixty-day period, the department of natural resources shall return all records pertaining to these lands to the respective counties. These records shall include, but not be limited to, legal descriptions, stand inventories, listings of all expenditures on these lands, and other pertinent records.
Upon the filing of an application by the board of county commissioners, the department of natural resources shall cause notice of the impending transfer to be given in the manner provided by RCW 42.30.060. The department shall reconvey the forest lands to the requesting county for as long as the forest lands or traded lands are kept in commercial forest status. If a respective county should choose to sell these lands to maximize the benefit to the citizens of the county, these lands shall be kept in commercial forest status by any present or future purchaser. Also, the principal of this new trust shall not be drawn upon by any governmental agency. The amount of the interest to be reinvested and the manner the funds are to be distributed in the respective counties shall be determined by a majority vote of that county's board of county commissioners. If the lands are sold, no more than fifty percent of the volume may be exported.
Any moneys distributed to school districts from this trust, including interest on investments of the trust, shall not be included in the computation of the total annual basic education allocation of the school districts under RCW 28A.150.250 and 28A.150.260 and shall not therefore be deducted from the basic education payments to those districts.
These counties regaining control of all or part of their state forest board transfer lands shall pay to the department of natural resources a fee of no more than three dollars per acre for ten years for those lands returned to the direct control of the counties. These moneys shall be used to assist the department of natural resources in rapidly processing harvest applications, fire patrols, transferring of information to the counties, and other similar duties. This agreement may be renegotiated or renewed at the end of the ten years. The first payment by the respective counties would be one year after the sixty-day period of notification has ended.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.
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