In order to give emergency funding to organizations that battled the state’s wildfires this summer, Oregon lawmakers intend to convene a brief legislative session on Thursday afternoon.
In a season that was three times worse than the 10-year average, a record 1.9 million acres burnt. As a result, the expense of battling those flames skyrocketed to $350 million.
The state fire marshal and Department of Forestry are in a tight spot financially as they wait for tardy federal reimbursements and scrounge together money for the surprisingly high state cost, even though the state expects the federal government to pay more than half of the price.
In order for the agencies to pay their bills and be solvent while an elected workgroup finds a better way to pay for wildfire expenses in the future, Governor Tina Kotek requested lawmakers to convene this month and release $218 million to the agencies.
The Oregon Department of Forestry, which combats wildfires on Oregon territory, and the Department of the State Fire Marshal, which organizes firefighters to safeguard cities and villages in a wildfire’s path, will bear around 90% and 10% of the state’s 2024 expenses, respectively.
At $318 million, this year’s firefighting expenses set a new record for the Department of Forestry. According to state financial analysts, the $132 million the state will have to pay is around five times the ten-year average and more than double the previous most costly fire season in 2020.
Kyle Williams, the Forestry Department’s deputy director of fire operations, told lawmakers earlier this year that he was expecting a comparatively ordinary season in 2024 because Oregon seemed to have typical fire conditions this spring. However, that perspective changed by the first week of July. Combustible vegetation were dried out and brought to peak burn condition nearly overnight during the nearly ten days of heat above 100 degrees that the state experienced. Several hundred fires were started by human-caused flames just after the Fourth of July, which were followed by an unusual series of dry lightning strikes that occurred throughout the state in the middle of the month. Oregon has had 38 uncontained flames covering 140,000 acres before the end of July, when a normal fire season would be starting to intensify. During that month, firefighters’ top national priority was Oregon.
Additionally, according to Williams, this year’s fire season lasted into October even though it normally ends at the end of September. 42 residences and 132 other structures burned throughout the state.
This year, the state fire marshal department spent $34.6 million. It anticipates that roughly half will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, leaving $17 million to be paid by the state.
According to the Legislative Fiscal Office, state agencies are responsible for paying the entire cost of the fire while they wait for reimbursement from federal agencies, which usually takes 12 to 30 months, and occasionally more.
To pay for the personnel and equipment they required to combat the fires, the fire marshal and the forestry department have been taking money out of their operating budgets. However, they are unable to maintain the lights in that manner indefinitely.
According to state fire marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple, her department has managed to pay its obligations thus far. According to Ruiz-Temple, it has paid roughly 75% of the $34 million in bills it anticipates receiving from the local fire departments and is either awaiting invoices or in the process of handling more funding requests. The local fire departments that responded to her request for their employees to travel up to eight hours to safeguard neighboring areas don’t want to be burdened with state debt.
According to Ruiz-Temple, the local fire department is holding state debt and must pay its firemen within 30 days if we don’t pay our structural fire services. We never want to be in that situation, where a local fire district is burdened with state debt.
These wildfire payments have been made by the fire marshal’s office using funds from the fund that covers staffing expenses as well as fire safety and education initiatives. Ruiz-Temple stated that although the agency has not yet been forced to discontinue any of those initiatives, it would have to think about doing so if it were unable to recover the costs associated with wildfires.
According to Ruiz-Temple, the $26.6 million that the Department of Administrative Services is requesting lawmakers provide her department this week would complete the agency and enable it to settle its outstanding debts while awaiting federal payment.
It might take a while. According to her, the agency has yet to get reimbursement from the federal government for more than $8 million from fire seasons that began in 2020.
According to Ruiz-Temple, the agency must constantly collaborate with lawmakers and financial authorities to help them comprehend its cash flow issues.
That problem has only been made worse, she said, by the most record-breaking fire season to date. Using an operational budget to pay for fire is not a good system.
The Department of Forestry has borrowed from agency money to cover its wildfire expenses, just like the fire marshal’s office.
By doing this, it hasn’t been able to keep up with the fire marshal’s office. According to a Legislative Fiscal Office estimate, by the end of November, over $102 million worth of invoices were still unpaid, the majority of which were at least 45 days old.
According to Williams, deputy fire operations director, the department has made an effort to prioritize its payments, paying off the oldest ones first and attempting to at least settle some of its larger invoices so that suppliers may attend to their urgent requirements.
According to Williams, wildfire contractors paid the upfront expenses to assist Oregon in fighting flames this year. They are currently awaiting reimbursement so they can pay employees and pay for equipment. He stated that in order to fill the shortfall, they must take out loans.
According to Williams, vendors have been understanding thus far. However, the waiting game threatens the future and strains those ties.
Will I be able to answer the bell year after year if this is where I’m going to be able to aid the state in the long run? Williams stated. While we wait and sort this out, some people are having to deal with those questions.
Even before this record fire season, the forestry department’s viability was in jeopardy five years ago when unpaid expenses from massive wildfires caused an extreme cash flow issue. Members of the state forestry board were informed earlier this year that the department had corrected several of its procedures after an external accounting consultant, MGO, delivered a damning report to the agency in 2019.
According to Williams, the agency’s efforts to resolve such issues were successful during the 2024 fire season. According to Williams, the state has a more streamlined audit and payment procedure and now collects wildfire costs far more rapidly and transparently than it did in the past.
According to him, we’re in a far better position than we were in the past to get these monies out the door quickly.
This month, the forestry department first requested that lawmakers provide $82 million. Nevertheless, the Legislative Fiscal Office estimated that the agency would be insolvent by January with only $82 million since revenues are not increasing quickly enough to cover fire season expenses. To get it through the remainder of the two-year budget that expires on June 30, the Department of Administrative Services suggests that lawmakers grant the department $191 million instead.
According to Kate Nass, the state’s top financial officer, the two departments’ combined $218 million would come from the state’s ending fund balance. She explained that the need for a special session stemmed from the fact that only the entire Legislature can access that cash.
According to Nass, financial officers would collaborate with the agencies and the Legislature to figure out how to reroute the funds back into the general fund or an agency cash flow account when the federal government reimburses a portion of that amount.
Nass stated last week that we must go through that procedure. However, this is simply an extremely high number. In order to pay the bills, we needed to get the money there.
On Tuesday, members of the Emergency Board public safety subcommittee of the Legislature emphasized the importance of finding a long-term solution to finance increasingly severe and costly wildfire seasons.
In order to find new ways for the state to pay for wildfire suppression, lawmakers established a workgroup last year. According to fire officials on Tuesday, the 35-member panel has reduced a group of 70 funding possibilities to roughly 20 and will meet again in January to further hone those ideas for lawmakers to review in the 2025 session.
It is up to the state of Oregon to determine whether or not we need to become a mature state. Paying our payments is a sign of maturity. Rep. Paul Evans, a Democrat from Monmouth who co-chairs the emergency public safety subcommittee, stated that it means we pay to ensure that the future has as many opportunities as we enjoy in the present.
He warned counties and cities that they shouldn’t count on the state to cover all of the costs of fighting wildfires and other disasters.
Evans stated, “This will be an all-hands-on-deck approach, which means all pocket books.” If you wish to reside in Oregon, you have an interest in this regardless of your financial situation.
Sami Edge writes for The Oregonian on politics and higher education. She may be contacted at (503) 260-3430 or [email protected].
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