Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

JOINT SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 241 Mr. Woods. Thank you, Senator. I am Trent Woods. I live in Elk City. I'm a member of the board of trustees of the Grangeville Joint School District 241. That's why I understood that we have some company to the north here that's also interested in this because I wish to speak to you about our district. I know that you're familiar with our district from past correspondence. Our superintendent, Mr. Bill Eimers, gave a speech last fall to the Joint Appropriations Committee and the legislature—State legislature. And I've appended the text of his remarks here to give your committee some data about our district, also. Thank you. It is no secret that the costs of education in Idaho and other States are increasing at a rate faster than the States abilities to fund those costs. This is just to keep it on a 642 status quo basis and gives nothing extra for the improvement of quality or excellence in education. This cost-funding squeeze is compounded in our district by the vast quantities of the nontaxable lands. The liabilities that the roadless areas impose upon us are quite serious. Our operating budget for the 1983-84 school year projects about $4.19 million in our operating budget. This is not our capital budget. This is our operating budget. Out of that, $708,892 comes from forest-related funds. These are funds that we have accumulat- ed in the past year as interest from those plus funds that will be generated during the coming year. This is about 17 percent of our total budget. And it's easy to see that anything that threatens that part of our funding could represent a major disaster to our system. If you consider that our district encompasses practically 5 mil- lion acres within the Nez Perce, the Clearwater, the Payette, and the Bitterroot National Forest, you will notice that we have ap- proximately 2.1 million acres in our district that have already been designated wilderness and withdrawn from direct productive use leaving us about 2.85 million acres of potential revenue acres. Now, out of this, the RARE II study identifies an additional 1 millon acres of roadless area. So about a third of the remaining revenue acres are threatened could be withdrawn and do threaten our fund- ing. It is important to us that we get the status of these lands solved now. And we must release them statutorily. We must also statuto- rily provide for the elimination of capricious lawsuits that are aimed at preventing development or use of multiple use lands. I would like to point out that more than one-half, in fact, almost 60 percent, of the total wilderness in the State of Idaho is located in my school district. We think that's enough.