West Virginia Agricultural Land Protection Authority
Regular Meeting – Clarksburg
Auditor’s Office
Thursday, April 23, 2015
10:00 AM
Attendees:
Members Present:
Bob Baird, Chairman, representative of the West Virginia Association of Conservation Districts
Rod Graves, Vice Chairman, representative of the 501-c-3
Lavonne Paden, Director
Bryan Archer, West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office, Proxy for State Treasurer John Perdue
Chris Ferro, West Virginia Department of Agriculture, Proxy for Agriculture Commissioner Walt Helmick
Lora Dyer, State Auditor’s Office, Proxy for State Auditor Glen Gainer
Bill Coffindaffer, Representative, Harrison County
Members Not Present:
Boyd Meadows, Representative, Cabell County
Mark Matheney, Representative, Monongalia County
Tim Cottrill, Representative, Mason County
Jim Moore, Representative, Berkeley County
Denzil Huff, Representative, Gilmer County
Guests:
Elizabeth Wheeler, President, West Virginia Association of Farmland Protection Boards
Michael Nusbaum, West Virginia State Auditor’s Office
Bill O’Donnell, NRCS
Joe Hatton, NRCS
Robin Gothard, West Virginia Department of Agriculture, Recorder of Minutes
Call to Order
Chairman Baird called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. and noted the meeting notice was filed in a
timely manner with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office.
Roll Call and Introductions
Chairman Baird welcomed everyone and in lieu of a roll call a sign-in sheet was circulated.
Meeting Notice/Agenda Approval
No problems were noted with the agenda and Chairman Baird let it stand as approved.
Approval of Minutes
Chairman Baird called for a motion to approve the Special Meeting minutes dated March 20, 2014.
1
Chris Ferro moved to approve the minutes of the Special Meeting; Lora Dyer seconded; motion
approved unanimously.
Monthly Financial Reports
Lavonne started her report by discussing the Real Estate Recordation Fee report. She said they are still
trying to smooth out the reports (from Oasis) that we need to pull off to determine how much revenue
the Authority is getting from recordation fees each month. She has to get Alan Clemans (WVDA
Administrative Services) to run each month separately to get that number. She noted the recordation
fees are consistent; the annualized amount is $784,606.67.
Bill Coffindaffer questioned why the spike in August? Lavonne said she thinks what happened is when
they converted from the FIMS system to Oasis they had a lot of trouble the first 30 days – the spike is a
“make-up” of two months.
Two other Oasis reports are in the meeting package; one is BC-027 – Current & YTD Revenue and
Expenditures. This report shows how much cash is in each fund. At the end of March, the Farmland
Protection fund has $ 2,582,602.79 of which $ 1,761,000.00 is committed to easements. There is about
$821,000 in uncommitted funds, and there are three months of recordation fees to gather up (April,
May, and June). Lavonne expects the Authority will have at least $1 million if not a little more to commit
to properties. In the federal fund there is $195,469.00. Lavonne said she’d be doing some cash
projections so the Authority will know how much to commit. In the line item report as of the end of
March, it shows current revenue and year-to-date (YTD) expenditures. Lavonne commented on pages 2
and 3 of the federal fund. She said she talked to Bob and Rod about the report. In current month
expenditures travel is about $2,000. The report is showing about $12,231.85. She asked Alan why the
difference. The reason is the costs of the Canaan conference is included, which just got paid. Alan told
Lavonne it is required by the Auditor’s office. Lavonne said this is miscoding; should be hospitality, not
employee travel. She asked Lora Dyer to check in to the problem. Lora agreed to do so.
Director’s Report
Lavonne gave her report which included January 2015 through March 2015 activities. She said it was a
busy quarter with the Legislature. She attended both House and Senate budget hearings. The
Authority’s budget came through intact. She completed the budget coding by the deadline and it’s
locked in. We just have to allocate by line item.
Legislation – There was a push by the Coalition of WV Land Trust to get SCR33 passed, which is a study
resolution for state tax credits for easements. The introduced version is in the meeting package. It has
not changed much since first introduced. Lavonne doesn’t know who is going to be assigned to the
study resolution. We need to make sure agricultural interests are represented. She has met with
Commissioner Helmick and Chris Ferro about this legislation. The idea would be tax credits that would
be assigned. We are trying to keep it the agriculture community rather than turning it over to local state
government because it will be competitive. For instance, the cap is $5 million and someone will have to
decide which citizen will get the $5 million. This will be for either donated or bargain sale of easements.
If someone doesn’t get paid for their easement then they could get a federal tax deduction. If we can
get legislation through they can get a state tax credit. Rod Graves commented that the leadership needs
to be nudged make this happen or it could ‘die on the vine’. Lavonne said she thought there was a
meeting coming up soon, but again, but she didn’t know who or which legislative committee this issue
would be assigned to.
2
Lavonne sat up a table at the annual Appalachian Grazing Conference in Morgantown and received a lot
of interests and questions about farmland protection. There are a lot of farmers and property owners
that don’t have a local board. She will try to attend the Small Farm Conference next year to answer
questions from attendees.
Website
Lavonne reported the new website has been launched. We’re close to having everything done. Liz has
worked a lot with her along w/Mark Schiavone from Berkeley County. It is working and one last thing
they need to do is enter the email addresses of board members in order to have the capability to
broadcast press releases.
Lavonne is also working with Treasurer’s office to be able to track ownership changes of properties.
SteveHolmes, appraiser from Buckhannon, has agreed to work on getting the sales data on properties
online.
Regional Conservation Partnership Program
Still haven’t signed agreements for RCPP. Lavonne discussed an outreach letter that has been drafted to
go out to all Ag use landowners. Mailing costs will be paid with the $5,000 grant through the Potomac
Valley Conservation District.
Good news is both the federal register for the rules and the NRCS manual provides for using the Yellow
Book and market analysis study. For a RCPP proposal, could do a market analysis by county. Lavonne
met with property appraiser Wesley Woods to talk about the market analysis and how it would be done.
She does not know if he’s spoken to Robert Ramsey, NRCS yet to sort out.
Bill O’Donnell commented this is something Lavonne needs to continue to push as this is not something
National Headquarters is are looking for but in the RCPP it is stated the rules can be changed to meet
the sponsor. He suggested to the Board to push to make this happen.
The Advanced Legal Symposium in coming up in Indianapolis June 11-12, 2015. Lavonne will share the
podium with a lady from Kansas who runs a Land Trust. She is working on a PowerPoint presentation.
Discussions will include technical subjects when dealing with easements. It should be an interesting
session as most of the attendees will be lawyers.
Single Point Agreements
Lavonne discussed easements the WVFLPA is committed to (Authority and local monies committed).
Refer to page 4 of her report. She reported on:
Caldwell property in Mercer County: Baseline will probably be starting in June; whole property going
into farmland protection so the survey is not an issue right now.
Suan property: Just received survey bids which ran from $ 9,000 to $ $29,000.
Morgan property in Greenbrier County: The Greenbrier County FLB did get back to her on Morgan
property; they initially did not want to close because they wanted the Authority to put in more money
for a 50/50 match, which the Authority declined to do for some other counties. They went ahead and
approved to move forward at their last board meeting.
3
Lavonne has met with Arlie Hubbard in the the Attorney General’s office. He did the title work on the
Caldwell and Suan properties. Properties have clear titles. The mineral subordination on Suan was fine
according to Arlie. He is now searching for title companies that will give the Authority title insurance.
She gave Arlie the name of three companies to check into, but has not talked to him to date.
Collins property in Cabell County (donation): She has not heard back since sending a letter stating the
daughters need to sign application.
Merritt property in Mason County: Lavonne did get a verbal on the restricted use report from the
appraiser. It’s about $ 900 dollar an acre. The landowner was very disappointed in that amount of
money and wanted to talk to his children. He asked for Lavonne to come back and talk with him, not
about price, but what he can do with the property. He may not want to move forward.
Lavonne discussed the NRCS Cooperation Shared Work status Report in the meeting packet. She
reviewed counties working with and commented the ones in red that have withdrawn or likely to be
withdrawn.
Lavonne commented on a letter dated March 18 that Chairman Baird signed (in meeting package)
regarding interim rules dealing with forest percentage limitations. We will continue to push.
Federal Farm and Ranchland Protection/NRCS
Bill O’Donnell said NRCS has received their allocation of money, and recently received instructions on
how to move forward. He discussed the ranking questions and rules and commented the RCPP is
delayed. They have all the paperwork in and are now waiting for delegation of authority for the State
Conservationist to sign agreements. They are looking to do the signing in Martinsburg. He will work with
Lavonne to set a date. Rod Graves is authorized to sign if Chairman Baird is not available to attend.
Bill requested the Financial Subcommittee meet about cooperative agreements. Normally, NRCS looks at
agreements at the end of the fiscal year which would be August or September. NRCS no longer has
contracting people in the state, and they have to somehow get this work done. They can’t wait till end
of the year to figure things out. They are going to start now to figure out what we want to happen to
those agreements going into next year. This is a national push to consolidate duties to deal with audit
findings. Bill said everybody is getting less money, nationally less than half of what was given in prior
years. New York is extremely upset as Congress did not give it to us. We need to look more closely at
where money is going after applications come in. Bill doesn’t want to commit to a single point direction
as they may not be necessary.
It was agreed the Financial Subcommittee (Chairman Baird, Rod Graves and Lora Dyer) will meet on
May 14 at 10 a.m. to meet in Morgantown to review cooperative agreements. Robin will post meeting
notification on Secretary of State’s website.
Joe Hatton, NRCS, then gave his report. He said in regard to the rule in the manual related to the 2014
Farm Bill, he will be glad to review over and he has copies if anyone wants them. He highlighted some of
the topics in the manual. The new Farm Bill gives NRCS authority to do modifications and terminations
of easements. The manual discusses evaluation processes of appraisals and market analysis – it does not
tell you how to do a market analysis. One point Lavonne brought up was to make sure local Boards
understand the requirements of a conservation plan. It appears the burden of monitoring a plan is on
4
the County Board, which is potentially a substantial amount of work. The County Boards County Boards
are not conservation planners, do not have the expertise, and he is not sure how they can do this. His
good news related to the ranking applications is that most of the questions on the federal side have
stayed the same, and they have been given criteria for developing state questions (the criteria is in the
manual).
Another topic in the manual is specialized subcommittees. He noted that any representative of any
individual or entity that has an interest in a particular project who serves on a state technical Board may
not assist in the development of a ranking criteria that will be applied to a project. Joe handed out a
draft on ideas for ranking questions. The advice of the committee members is that it would be nice to
find parcels with the largest amount of important soils.
Discussion then followed from Lavonne on RCPP issues. She thinks that come the July meeting, the
Authority will take advice from NRCS to fund big properties that counties can’t fund under the regular
ACEP program. She thinks we will need to recommend that the rest of the Authority’s money be locked
in to the RCPP granting process because that is what we’ve committed to because of a time constraint.
Joe said as quick as they can get decisions made on the ranking criteria they will release to county
boards; should take care of 2015. Joe wants to get away from subjective answers to questions; had
problems in the past.
Joe then reported on easements: in the last two weeks, two FY 11 agreements have been closed; one in
Hampshire County. Hopes to close 7 or 8 in the next few months.
WV Association of Farmland Protection Boards (WVAFPB)
Elizabeth Wheeler, President, gave her report. She noted many of the issues discussed at their meeting
have been covered at this meeting. There is interest and concern about the ranking criteria. DonOwen,
who visits small Land Trusts, including FLB’s, who are in the Potomac Watershed, gave a presentation.
He’s been helpful to her in coming in to talk about program issues. At their meeting he discussed the
Land Trust Alliance and the benefits provided by the Alliance, particularly their online learning center.
The Association discussed an LTA membership. The typical membership is $250 per year which gives you
access to all the information and discounts on conferences and published materials. The costs would be
about $80 per farmland protection employee. She said they may give interested folks a 60-day trial
period. She said they had a presentation on how to use WordPress. She noted there is a new director on
the Berkeley County Board who has technical writing experience, and assisted in producing a manual on
how to use WordPress. The manual is available online to association members. Paper copies are
available as well. The fall training dates are September 11 and 25th and they are still deciding the topics.
Business items
GIS Project – ShapeFiles on the Web
Lavonne gave a presentation on the website’s capabilities. She has been working with Michael Schwartz
of the Conservation Fund who has kept our Shapefiles for years. There are about 50,000 protected acres
in state; some is from Farmland Protection Boards and Land Trusts. Mike said he could put together a
summary of the files and the Authority could hire a consultant to upload the new Shapefiles every year
fairly inexpensively. All kinds of information can be loaded on the program. Lavonne gave a
demonstration: you can click on the property on the map screen and see the owner of the property and
the acreage. Although the owner may object to their name being out there, the site could be password
protected. The software has tremendous capability. This would be the state site for protected property.
5
Lavonne then asked for permission from the Authority to move forward at a cost of up to $ 5,000. ESRI is
the name of the GIS Company. Lavonne has mentioned this project at the Outdoor Heritage meeting.
The idea is for the site to be the ‘state’s site’ for information on protected properties.
A motion was requested to give Lavonne authorization to move forward with GIS– Shapefiles on Web
project at a cost of up to $ 5,000. Rod Graves made the motion; Bill Coffindaffer seconded; motion
approved unanimously.
Lavonne noted the website address is WVFP.org.
Authority Forestry Policy
Lavonne reported that at the last Board meeting a draft of the policy was reviewed, and Chris
questioned whether the Authority should be doing legislative rulemaking. A decision was made not to
because the Authority wants to be flexible to see if it works and not bind the Authority or counties with
rules. The policy is in line with NRCS and the Division of Forestry is pretty happy with it. There is a 40acre minimum for a forest management plan although Forestry would like to see about 5 acres. Lavonne
thinks it is a good, solid policy. Lavonne presented draft policy for approval at this meeting on April 23,
2015, and noted that the date will need to be changed if approved today.
Bill Coffindaffer moved to adopt draft forestry policy and Rod Graves seconded. Motion approved
unanimously.
Bill O’Donnell reiterated that when the Authority is working the NRCS it is their (NRCS) language; if they
are not involved; whatever the language in the policy is they are not a part of (refer to page 4). Lavonne
said the major difference is they got into this policy to allow people to cut more than one percent trees
in any two years without a plan.
Authority Bidding/Expense/Reimbursement Policy and Department of Agriculture Travel
Reimbursement Policy Lavonne said due to OASIS, the WVDA wanted to make sure all their Boards were
in agreement with the WVDA policy. Lavonne took the WVDA travel policy and incorporated it into the
Authority’s policy to comply with them. She says the meal reimbursement policy for first and last day of
travel while absent from official headquarters on overnight status is reimbursed at 75% of total daily
reimbursement. Motion is needed to approve to incorporate Authority policy to be in line with WVDA
policy. Chris commented this policy is written in the state’s quest for uniformity.
Chris Ferro made the motion to approve policy as amended to include 75% meal reimbursement as
stated in the WVDA policy. Lora Dyer seconded. Motion approved unanimously.
Other Business Items
None
Public Comment:
Bill O’Donnell said Kevin Wickey has left NRCS in Morgantown. Tom Watson, from Oregon, is the Acting
State Conservationist.
Next Meeting:
July 23, 2015, State Auditor’s office in Clarksburg.
Meeting Adjourned.
6
7