Many TSW readers and others have contacted me and Dave Mertz with questions and concerns about the Keystone Agreements and what is going on with them. Some questions we will be able to piece together via our future FOIA (e.g. what are the indirect costs being charged?) and others not so much (what parts of the Forest Service are doing what kind of oversight?). Our current plan is to FOIA all the SPAs and annual reports from initiation of the agreements to the present.
Our philosophy is that 1) great and amazing work is probably being done, and
2) transparency and accountability are the hallmark of good government
3) with this much money going out, couldn’t someone be paid to round this up?
4) and finally, this is apparently about “building capacity” so that more work can be done. Congress tends to shunt more $ into successful programs (with community support that they hear about from their constituents), so if we want boatloads of bucks in the future for our stuff (don’t we? I think that’s what the post-Wildfire Commission resilience groups are working toward), the FS should communicate to everyone how well this is working.
Fortunately, Dave was told by the FS:
“Accomplishments are being tracked at a local, regional, and national level through our agency’s authoritative data sources. We are monitoring financial burn rates and programmatic outputs, among other things. Forest staff, program managers, and grants and agreements staff collectively provide oversight to ensure the successful implementation of the agreement with our partners.”
So it shouldn’t be hard to get these accomplishments via the national office.
Chris French wrote this piece in March of 2023:
“Keystone agreements, including agreements already executed and agreements under development, for BIL and IRA implementation include:
National Forest Foundation: Master stewardship agreement to aid in executing the wildfire crisis strategy
Mule Deer Foundation: Master stewardship agreement for habitat improvement and restoration while supporting the wildfire crisis strategy
National Wild Turkey Federation: Master stewardship agreement for habitat improvement and restoration while supporting the wildfire crisis strategy
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation: Participating agreement to support ecosystem restoration through the America the Beautiful Challenge
The Nature Conservancy: Existing participating agreement for various activities; new agreement for prescribed fire cooperative burning
Trout Unlimited: Participating agreement to support watershed restoration and resiliency
Student Conservation Association: Wildfire academy and prescribed fire workforce development program.”
And there is also American Forests, which is about reforestation.
Perhaps others have been added?
Do you have other questions? You can also email me (sharon at forestpolicypub.com) or Dave Mertz (mertzdave1 at gmail) instead of making a comment below.
I have been thinking along the same lines. In fact, a colleague and friend who works for NFF suggested this as a topic for research recently.
In addition to understanding what is happening, I’d like to understand where investments are being made on the ground and to what extent they reflect where the greatest need is–particularly from a community capacity standpoint. It gets at both transparency questions and accountability (to the public) questions. I am concerned that investments are flowing to places with higher capacity, following or being followed by private philanthropy, and leaving other places behind.
Alternatively, these investments could be MORE responsive to community/regional needs by virtue of being delivered by more nimble organizations. The potential tension between mission-driven goals and community needs could be a particularly interesting lens.
Some of us thought that about CFLRPs, that they were, to some extent, rewarding those with capacity instead of building capacity. And as I mentioned in a previous post, we were big on partnerships when I worked in Region 2. Questions came up as to whether NGO priorities were what the Forest and communities needed most. After all, Denver Water, for example, can afford to do much work on its own. So here are some other questions:
(1) Do mega grants change priorities for work? Who is involved in the “priority” discussion exactly.. who represents communities?
(2) Is it the most cost-effective way to deliver programs?
(3) Are we removing more highly paid technical/scientific jobs from the federal workforce? What about continuity and professionalism in the government?
(4) What are the uniquely good things that can be done via grants that can’t be done via contracting or temp, term or permanent employees? For example, hiring local people who don’t have worry about housing. If everyone decides that this is good, could federal hiring policies be tweaked? Can we expand the good things to contracting and federal jobs?
Re: (3) Many forests do not have the capacity to take on these keystone agreements because they lack the personnel and expertise to oversee the work. And some forests are using these agreements anyway and encountering problems because they lack the personnel and expertise. It’s like the WO took on these “keystone” agreements to soak up some funds and “increase capacity”, but didn’t really think it through. And places that have the capacity already are effectively using these keystone agreements, but other places that don’t have the capacity – well, it’s not helping them increase their capacity, IMHO.