Forest land is seen along Sauk Creek looking northeast in Belgium on Wednesday. Landowners would be allowed to keep the public off more of their forest property while still getting a tax break, under a bill introduced by two Republican legislators. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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Landowners would be allowed to keep the public off more of their forest property while still getting a tax break, under a bill introduced by two Republican legislators.

The state's 3.3 million-acre Managed Forest Law gives property tax reductions to owners of forestland who agree to adopt a plan to periodically log timber from the land.

In exchange for paying lower property taxes, the owners now must keep the land in timber and allow citizens to use the land for hunting, fishing, hiking, sightseeing and other recreational uses.

The law currently allows landowners to set aside up to 160 acres for private use. The 1985 law was aimed at encouraging commercial timber production, protecting habitat and increasing opportunities for outdoor recreation.

One of the bill's authors said the proposal helps address loopholes in the law and helps encourage timber production on private land. But skeptics question whether the bill gives landowners a benefit while relieving them of part of their obligations to sportsmen and the public.

A bill by Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) and Rep. Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz) would lift the 160-acre cap and allow property owners on nonindustrial timber land to restrict all public access.

Under the law, the owners don't get as big of a tax cut on their properties if they close those forests to the public. But their tax bill would still be sharply lower than land not enrolled in the program.

In the most recent available year, landowners paid a statewide average of $42.70 per acre of productive forest that was not in the program.

For land enrolled in the program since 2005, owners pay only $2.14 in taxes per acre of forestland if they keep that property open to the public. For each acre they enroll but keep closed to the public, they pay $10.68 per acre on that parcel, according to the DNR.

Thus, owners of 1,000 acres enrolled in the program but closed to the public would pay $10,680 in property taxes, compared with $42,700 in taxes on that property if they were charged the average tax for forestland outside the program.

Those same 1,000 acres would have an annual property tax bill of $2,140 if the land were enrolled in the program and kept open to the public.

Under the bill, while the 160-acre cap would be removed, the amount of the tax breaks would not change.

Of all acreage under the law, 2.2 million acres, or 67%, are closed to the public; and 1.1 million acres, or 33%, are open, according to figures provided by the DNR.

In 2012, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in "Hidden Hunting Land" that some land can be difficult to find, and in some cases owners had carved out islands of open land that were essentially off limits because they were surrounded by closed land.

Tiffany said he proposed the bill because some landowners have already found a loophole to get around the law by breaking larger tracts into many 160-acre pieces that are each owned by a separation corporation, which then closes off each parcel.

The senator noted that the Wisconsin Council on Forestry in 2013 recommended the change to address this "gerrymandering" of some parcels.

The council made its recommendation "hesitantly," an online report from the council shows, noting members agreed there is value to opening land and "as such recognizes the conflict with this and the proposed modification."

Tiffany and Mursau are moving quickly on the measure and asked fellow legislators to sign on as co-sponsors by Thursday at 4 p.m.

Questions raised

Former Natural Resources Board member David Clausen raised questions about the bill, even though he sees merit in keeping some land closed to the public under the law.

Clausen said the change would appear to favor wealthy landowners willing to pay more to keep land closed while still seeing a benefit on their tax bill.

"I really don't like large landowners getting a tax break and then maintaining it as their private domain," said Clausen, who was appointed to the board by former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

Clausen owns three tracts of forestland in Polk County under the Managed Forest Law. He pays the higher tax rate to keep about two-thirds of his land closed.

The reason: "Some people are less than ideal stewards," said Clausen who has found litter, cans and screws drilled into trees from those using the land.

Another former DNR board member questioned why the change is needed.

"MFL has been a historic bargain," said John "Duke" Welter of Viroqua, noting its value as productive timberland and a source of land for public use.

"It's a trade-off that has worked well for decades," said Welter, also a Doyle appointee.

Earlier changes

Tiffany said he believed many property owners will continue to keep their land open to the public to qualify for the lowest possible property tax rate. Most property owners that want to restrict their land from public use have already done so, he argued.

The northern Wisconsin senator earlier sponsored a change in state law that shut off access to managed forestland that was the site of a proposed iron ore mine. Protesters at the site committed acts of vandalism, prompting Republican legislators to carve out special language that restricted access.

Also, Tiffany added language to the budget bill last summer that could mean adding more logging on nearly 37,500 acres of state forests.

"More wood, less red tape — that's the theme this year," Tiffany said.

The DNR declined to comment, with spokesman Jim Dick saying the agency's practice is not to comment on pending legislation.

The change comes three years after Gov. Scott Walker and legislators from both parties directed the DNR to improve access to such land after the 2012 report by the Journal Sentinel.

An investigation by the paper showed that despite millions of dollars in tax breaks for owners of the land, properties can be hard for the general public to locate and reach.

The Journal Sentinel released its own interactive guide in September 2012 to finding managed forest land that was open to the public. The DNR then developed and released its own guide.