Audit says how much landowners pay for firefighting resources based on antiquated process

Montana’s system of determining how much landowners should pay for wildland firefighting resources has drifted out of balance since its inception decades ago, according to a legislative audit published in April.

Under the Fire Assessment Program run by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the state’s firefighting costs are partially paid for through fees assessed on 5 million acres owned by private citizens.

The properties across 33 fire protection districts pay a mandated fee of $50 plus a 30-cent-per-acre rate for properties over 20 acres. The audit, done by legislative staffers and presented to the Legislative Audit Committee on Friday, found those payments underestimate the true cost of fighting wildfire in those areas. 

In 2023, FAP fees covered only about 11% of the DNRC’s total wildfire-related expenditures. But according to recent Montana-specific data analyzed by the auditors, roughly 92% of fires that do not begin on federal land begin on private land. 

In 2023, the difference between the total fees collected from private landowners on state-protected areas and the total cost to protect them amounted to almost $34 million.

Montana’s current practice, first adopted nearly 70 years ago, has interpreted landowner responsibility as no more than a third of total firefighting expenditures, a ratio intended to represent the relative number of fires ignited on private land based on a nationwide 1958 study.

The audit recommended the Legislature update the assessment framework and suggested the DNRC modernize the assessment calculation’s efficiency, consistency and accuracy.

At Friday’s Legislative Audit Committee hearing, DNRC Director Amanda Kaster voiced hesitancy about the audit’s central finding.

“The audit suggests that the Legislature might want to consider a significant shift in funding philosophy, moving more costs to high-risk areas. And this is a departure from Montana’s traditional approach,” Kaster said.

The director acknowledged that “it is not DNRC’s role to make land-use decisions or to determine which areas should receive different levels of response,” but also publicly pondered the logic of the audit’s finding that riskier developments should bear a higher cost.

“Fire protection could be funded like other emergency services, such as law enforcement, with everyone sharing the costs since all Montanans benefit from this service,” Kaster said.

Kaster concurred with the audit’s recommendations on automated quality controls and updated procedures, suggestions aimed mainly at addressing 980 misassessed properties that resulted in undercollection and overcollection of fees that total $17,000. The audit attributed DNRC’s error to challenges with calculating assessments for properties along districts boundaries, properties on open-space land and properties on local government land. 

Four representatives for the timber industry challenged the audit’s findings during the public hearing, arguing the report oversimplified a complex issue while recommending a sweeping policy shift without adequately consulting landowners and industry stakeholders.

Julia Altemus, the executive director at Montana Wood Products Association, called the audit’s recommendation “a major policy-filled, philosophical change from what we’ve done over the course of the last several decades.”

Altemus asked the committee to “put a pin in this” while an interim legislative committee moves forward with House Bill 70, a study bill intended to examine the state’s fire suppression issues, methods and costs. 

Kenneth Noddings, an analyst with the Legislative Audit Division, indicated LAD’s estimation that private landowners received a $33.5 million subsidy in 2023 was “based on the resources we had access to during the audit.” 

“We recognize that other methods of determining this responsibility proportion may exist,” Noddings said. “Our final recommendation includes a provision for the department to work with the legislature to determine the correct responsibility proportion based on current Montana data.”