Date: 01/29/2014

Final
State Land Board Presentation


HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

Votes: View--> Action Taken:
<none><none>





11:24 AM -- State Land Board Presentation

Representative Peniston, chair, called the meeting to order. She introduced Bill Ryan, Director of the State Land Board. Mr. Ryan discussed the nature of the land board, its activities, and its impact on education. He distributed a copy of his presentation (Attachment A). Mr. Ryan discussed the land board's role as manager of trust lands and stated that 97 percent of the land board's revenues benefit K-12 education throughout Colorado.

14HseEd0129AttachA.pdf14HseEd0129AttachA.pdf

He discussed the composition of the board and the board's goal of producing reasonable and consistent income for the trusts. He explained that sound stewardship is the focus of the land board's activities. Mr. Ryan described the organization of the land board, its staffing, and the geographic distribution of its offices. Mr. Ryan responded to questions from the committee, and explained that the land board earned more than $120 million in each of the last 3 years. He defined trust lands as those lands held by the state for a specific purpose and described the public uses available on many parcels. Mr. Ryan responded to more questions from the committee and discussed the land board's revenue sources.

Mr. Ryan described the impact of the state land board's work and explained that 50 percent of its revenue goes to the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program, while the remainder is spent on obligations under the School Finance Act. Mr. Ryan explained to the committee that the board has no decision items or budget requests to bring to the General Assembly this year. Mr. Ryan responded to questions from the committee.