Board governance committee debates where to house state forest performance measures

Members of the board governance committee reviewed edits to the board policy manual on a virtual call and agreed to forward two documents to the full board for a June vote, while debating where the State Forest Management Plan’s performance measures should be housed.

A committee member who floated the idea (identified in the transcript only by the first name Ben) proposed placing performance measures and associated targets in an addendum to the board policy manual so the board could update targets through the committee/board process rather than by amending the rule that implements the State Forest Management Plan. "It isn't really anywhere is the problem," Ben said, arguing the measures currently lack a clear home.

Supporters and skeptics both raised practical concerns. One member warned that embedding measures in the rule creates a "litigation hook," a point echoed by another who said staff have resisted putting measures into the rule to preserve flexibility. Staff and committee members also suggested the performance measures might be better maintained on the management‑plan webpage or captured in a non‑exclusive addendum that lists the instruments the board expects staff to track.

Committee members agreed on a few procedural points: the edits the committee reviewed will be presented to the full board in June (members asked for a small wording change from "can" to "may" in the agenda development addendum), addendum G (the performance evaluation addendum) was identified as high priority to complete this year, and committee members signaled a preference to keep the board's separate State Forester review on an annual cadence rather than reverting to a two‑year cycle used by the governor's office.

Those who cautioned against immediately appending multiple program policies to the board governance manual suggested alternatives: keep a brief, non‑exclusive catalog of expectations in an addendum ("including but not limited to" language), maintain fuller performance‑measure detail on the agency website, and use orientation materials to help incoming board members understand the suite of documents the board relies on.

The committee did not take a formal vote on the location of performance measures during the meeting. The next procedural steps are: send the two reviewed documents to the full board for a June vote, continue drafting the addendum G performance evaluation, and bring a fuller discussion of performance measures to a later meeting (members mentioned September as a likely time to address performance measures once they are more fully developed).