Budget forecast for Oklahoma Forestry Services parent agency down, while lawmaker interest is on the rise

Oklahoma lawmakers are paying closer attention to its wildfire prevention strategies after wildfires killed four people and left more than 500 homes destroyed. 

In a press availability on Thursday, Speaker of the House Kyle Hilbert said his legislative priorities changed. 

“In the wake of wildfires, that’s something that’s really high on my personal priority list just having seen everything that everyone’s went through,” Hilbert said. 

Specifically, House Bill 2162 and Senate Bill 263 would expand the state’s fight to reduce “harmful woody species,” such as the Eastern Redcedar. 

“It was just a very, very tough situation,” Hilbert added. “And I mean, one of the things — once that’s upon you — the mitigation that you need to do to prepare for that has to be done months, if not years, in advance.” 

Governor Kevin Stitt saw the situation differently and dismissed the head of Oklahoma Forestry Services, Mark Goeller, for what he perceived as a performance failure. 

“We look at three things: a change in the fuels, the weather, or the topography,” Goeller told News 9 in an interview two days before the wildfire outbreak. “And so that is where experience in wildland fire control comes into play, where we can observe the total fire environment, see where those changes may occur regards to a change in the fuel type, maybe a change in the topography where the fire may be burning up a slight hill and then it takes crest the hill and starts to burn down.” 

There’s not yet an official tally for the cost of the state’s firefighting efforts in March. 

But, during a budget hearing in front of the House Appropriations Committee on February 3, Secretary of Agriculture Blayne Arthur and JanLee Rowlett, deputy commissioner for the agency, presented their FY 2026 budget request.

“Those of you around the table know that I am appointed by the Governor and he’s driving us at flat budgets, which I certainly respect and appreciate and understand that,” Arthur said. 

The budget, however, was not conventionally flat. The Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry requested nearly $43 million for FY 2026, down 40% from its FY 2025 appropriation of nearly $72 million. 

Included in the budget changes was a zeroed-out expenditure, previously $2 million, which Deputy Commissioner Rowlett told Representatives was spent on bringing in out-of-state firefighting resources. 

“As you might remember, things really picked up late in the fall last year,” she said. “And now we have spent all of that $2 million on mostly out-of-state resources, where we asked other states to help us bring in equipment to respond to the fires that really were kind of spread across central and western Oklahoma, even eastern Oklahoma, last October into November.” 

Crews from Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana have worked alongside Oklahomans during the March wildfires. 

FY 2026 appropriations have not been approved by both chambers, and the Governor.