State forester seeks $950,000 for emerald ash borer grants, asks for nursery staff funding

Tom Claeys, State Forester, told the Appropriations — Education and Environment Division that the North Dakota Forest Service’s Armstrong‑recommended budget includes routine salary, health‑insurance and inflationary increases, and that the agency has two scalable optional asks: up to $350,000 for two FTEs at the Towner State Nursery, and $950,000 in special funds for emerald ash borer mitigation grants.

Claeys said the baseline Armstrong recommendation contains regular adjustments — a 3% per year salary increase line, a health insurance increase and inflationary items such as utilities and motor‑pool costs — and that total ongoing increases were roughly $642,000 combined from general and other funds before optional requests. He described the emerald ash borer mitigation request as $950,000 from SIF (special funds) intended primarily as pass‑through grants to communities for proactive removal, replacement and, in some high‑value cases, treatment of ash trees.

On the Towner Nursery, Claeys told senators the nursery has struggled to recruit seasonal and part‑time workers in McHenry County and proposed replacing some temporary positions with up to two full‑time positions to ensure year‑round work such as seed cleaning, stratification and greenhouse start‑up. He described the $350,000 ask as “scalable” and said the nursery has been able to hire some permanent staff but that the seasonal workforce is shrinking and aging.

Claeys and senators discussed alternatives, including increasing seasonal wages or using placement agencies; Claeys said the 26‑week limit for temporary hires and limited local workforce supply in Towner make simple hourly increases an incomplete solution. He also explained that proactive community inventories and early removal of low‑value ash trees, followed by planting diverse species, have been a strategy used since the Emerald Ash Borer threat emerged in the region.

Committee staff (Alex) provided detail on line items such as $80,000 for temporary salaries, $15,700 for motor pool, $10,000 for smaller IT equipment, $45,000 for utilities and $25,000 for professional fees as components of the inflationary request. The committee did not adopt final funding decisions in the session; members signaled they would discuss the optional nursery FTEs and the emerald ash borer grant amount during upcoming budget work.

Ending: No appropriation was adopted at the hearing. The Forest Service's optional requests were characterized as scalable; the committee plans follow‑up budget work and will consider specific appropriation amounts in subsequent sessions.