Question 15971 — woods and forests

Summary

Mr. Olivier Gaillard draws the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food to the measure, which should be implemented soon (July 2019), consisting of having the National Forestry Office (ONF) collect revenues from municipal timber sales before paying them back to them within a period of up to three months. This measure targets the elected representatives of forestry municipalities, already particularly elected unhappy with the choice of the ONF and the State to freeze 145 positions in 2018 (and 250 planned for 2019), in total opposition to the 2016-2020 objectives and performance contract, signed by three ministers, which provided for maintaining the ONF workforce in response to the expectations of elected officials to have a real public service in the forest. During the ONF board of directors meeting on November 29, 2018, the discussion around the 2019 budget was an opportunity to see emerge again this measure. In the fall of 2017, the ONF put this proposal under discussion with the desire for application in early 2018. Elected officials from forestry municipalities expressed major reservations and detailed, during an interministerial meeting, the foreseeable negative consequences for the municipalities of such a measure. A week before the ONF board of directors, the representatives of the forest municipalities took knowledge, in the budgetary documents, of the inclusion of an ONF revenue relating to collection in 2019. Several reasons argue in favor of abandoning this measure. On the one hand, the revenues and expenditures of local authorities are subject to the rules of public accounting which is ensured by the municipal receiver for the municipalities. Introduce a financial intermediary into the management of forest revenues contravenes this logic, and can only harm the transparency and efficiency of the accounting system. On the other hand, this intermediate management would generate unnecessary complexity and additional management costs, at a time when it is essential to contain the operating expenses of local authorities. Added to this is the observation that the ONF is already having difficulty providing accurate accounts. He There is no objective reason to support this collection, by the ONF, of revenues, which is analyzed as a revolving credit, a cash line, which will mask the accounting reality during the first year and will cause payment delays to the municipalities. Especially since it is useful to remember, on the one hand, that the municipalities are sources of income for the ONF, and not of expenses, and, on the other hand, that the financial situation of the ONF has deteriorated significantly (the ceiling limit authorized by the authorities of 400 million euros in cash flow deficit has almost been reached). The context of entry into force of such a measure is also marked by the upheavals relating to wood sales (transition over the counter), but also by municipal finances with little room for maneuver. He therefore asks him if this measure, which had been neither specified nor debated for two years, has been definitively adopted by the Government. He also asks whether it is possible to suspend the adoption of this measure and postpone its implementation, with a view to opening a broader discussion with the stakeholders, as this system appears to be foreign to the interests of the municipalities (main stakeholders) and out of step with the priority of restoring the ONF's accounts. This concerns more than 11,000 municipalities in France, of which 6,000 belong to the network of forest municipalities.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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