As a fourth generation Montanan, I know Treasure State residents value and jealously guard our public lands. To protect Montana’s heritage, we must ensure public land is not sold or locked away, and we must take immediate steps to improve access to landlocked trust parcels.
As state auditor, I serve on Montana’s Board of Land Commissioners. The Montana Constitution entrusts me with the critical duty of managing state trust lands for the benefit of public schools. These lands – roughly five million acres of forests, rangelands, and agricultural parcels – help fund education throughout the state. However, hundreds of school trust parcels, which cover thousands of acres of public lands, are inaccessible to the public for recreational purposes and often generate less revenue for Montana students.
Unlocking the true potential of these lands requires an approach that keeps pace with modern land management realities. This means revisiting a longstanding bottleneck: the Land Board’s slow, cumbersome process for land exchanges. Currently, promoting a beneficial exchange is an arduous task. The process can take years, getting tangled in red-tape reviews, undermined by duplicative appraisals, and burdened by high costs to the state and landowners alike.
The Land Board last updated its exchange policy two decades ago. Needless to say, Montana’s land management reality has changed significantly since the early 2000s. With the growth in Montana’s population, I am witnessing increased conflicts associated with protecting senior water rights holders and hunting and fishing opportunities. Consequently, the Land Board is often hindered in our constitutionally directed mission to secure the largest amount of funding possible for Montana public schools.
To make the most of our state trust lands, I will urge my Land Board colleagues at our May meeting to support updating the Board’s existing land exchange policy in a manner that makes sense for all public lands users. My newly drafted policy expedites and streamlines the exchange process, thereby making state land management more efficient and profitable while preserving public input and transparency. You can review my revised draft policy on my agency’s website at csimt.gov.
The modernized process will strengthen Montana’s conservation and recreational goals. Many of the most heated land conflicts stem from checkerboard ownership patterns, in which public and private lands are stitched together in a patchwork that complicates land management and access. Revising the State’s land exchange process will serve as a powerful tool to address and resolve these long-standing issues in relation to use of state trust properties. Notably, my revisions have been well received by every agricultural, recreational, hunting, and conservation group with which I’ve spoken.
Efficient land management stands out as one of the few existing levers capable of simultaneously protecting private property rights, advancing conservation goals, and obtaining greater public land access amid our population boom. Revising the state trust land exchange policy is an innovative way of solving long-standing areas of conflict while better aligning Land Board policy with Montana values.
If my changes are adopted, the Land Board will be able to assure a trade is a good deal for the state and prevent the sale of public lands. That’s a true win-win for conservationists, recreationists, and lands owners alike.
If you agree with this common-sense direction, I encourage you to reach out to my Land Board colleagues. Let them know that you too support creating a mechanism for reducing the number of landlocked lands that generate below‑average revenue by making exchanges easier when such exchanges clearly improve public access, generate more income for Montana schools, and benefit existing landowners.
James Brown is the Montana state auditor.