"Gov. Scott Walker's plan to freeze spending for land purchases is the latest and most aggressive attempt by the governor and the Legislature to rein in a program that has protected more than 650,000 acres over the past quarter-century.
The conservation work has touched every corner of the state, but it has come with a hefty price tag. The cost of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund has mushroomed since 1990, with total spending at $641.8 million.
Wisconsin taxpayers are spending $1.6 million a week to pay the debt service, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
"It's time that we start paying down our debt," said Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst), a member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee. "It's a good time to take a timeout."
With Walker's proposed spending freeze casting a big chill over the program, a coalition of environmental and sporting groups has begun lobbying against the cuts.
His proposal would stop land acquisitions until 2028 — the target when borrowing costs would fall from $84 million a year to $54 million, according to the DNR.
The freeze would halt all land transactions — from massive deals that can sprawl for 100 square miles to smaller buys, where the DNR shares costs with local land trusts.
The hallmark of stewardship: Public access is assured and land is protected forever.
In Milwaukee, program spending has included$5 million to finance the start-up of Lakeshore State Park next to the Summerfest grounds and $4 million for the Hank Aaron State Trail in the Menomonee Valley.
Since 1990, local units of government and nonprofits in Waukesha County have received $20.8 million under stewardship; in Ozaukee County, $12.7 million; in Washington County, $11.7 million; in Milwaukee County, $7.9 million; and in Racine County, $7.2 million, Legislative Fiscal Bureau documents show.
"The moratorium will be devastating to land conservation in Wisconsin," said Mike Carlson, external relations director for Gathering Waters Conservancy, a statewide organization that advises local land trusts.
Despite decades of acquisitions, Carlson said Wisconsin ranks behind Michigan and Minnesota in state land holdings. Wisconsin's 4% in DNR-held land compares with 12% in Michigan and 11% in Minnesota, figures from the three states show.............
As the cost of the stewardship program soared, Republicans in Walker's first term cut spending, imposed more oversight and ordered the DNR to sell 10,000 acres...."
A lawyer I knew in South Carolina was setting up a legal mechanisms so people could preserve whatever land they purchased for its present purpose in perpetuity. People were buying, for example, farms or forest in poor areas and making it impossible to ever use the land for a different purpose. In practice wealthy people who sometimes didn’t even live there were condemning those impoverished counties to perpetual poverty.