Financial Secrets

Financial statements

Years ago, when the Oregon Department of Forestry managed the Elliott State Forest, it published an annual report about the Elliott State Forest. But when I began writing this website in May 2020, the Department of State Lands had taken control and very little financial data was available about what they were doing on the Elliott. Instead, they published an annual report about the entire Common School Fund, so Elliott information was hidden inside a much larger overall total.

This lack of financial information didn't seem fair, so I filed a Freedom of Information -- Public Records request. All earlier informal requests -- made by the Plaintiff and others -- had been politely acknowledged and then ignored. to file and enforce Oregon's Freedom of Information (FOIA) act. Specifically, I filed a formal request to learn about timber harvests and "payments of more than $10,000 made since July 2017, when DSL took over management of the Elliott ... to foresters for cruises, to OSU, for HCP work, to Oregon Consensus, and other professional service payments."

The Department of State Lands delayed as long as possible: It took them twice as long as the legally allowed maximum time to respond before they provided any information. But the request was eventually successful and the results can now be seen at https://www.oregon.gov/dsl/Land/Documents/ElliottExpensesOverview.pdf.

The key takeaways from this document are:

• No harvesting. Since the Department of State Lands took management of the Elliott State Forest away from the Oregon Department of Forestry, all harvesting has stopped, and there are no plans for harvesting.  I've since talked with Ryan Singleton, the forester currently in charge of managing the Elliott State Forest. He told me he has been directed not to do any harvesting, and he has taken this mandate seriously. So when people ask to commercially harvest mushrooms, huckleberries or other forest products from the Elliott State Forest, he simply rejects all harvesting applications. 

• Expensive plans. As of July 2020, Oregon State University has been paid $660,000 to prepare plans to convert the Elliott into an Oregon State University Research Forest.  An additional $340,000 remains to be spent under the OSU/DSL agreement.

• Expensive meetings. Oregon Consensus  "is facilitating the advisory committee and other workgroups" and as of July 2020 has spent $184,000 out of an overall $289,000 agreement. In addition, Oregon Consensus received $132,000 in 2018 to produce a report about on "decoupling potential". 

Value of the Elliott State Forest

The biggest financial secret of the Elliott State Forest is its overall value.