Auditor James Brown Celebrates Land Board’s Decision to Protect Public Lands, Expand Recreational Opportunities, and Raise More Funds for Public Schools by Removing Bureaucratic Hurdles Hindering State Land Exchanges

HELENA, Mont. — Montana State Auditor and Commissioner of Securities and Insurance James Brown celebrates the state Land Board’s vote today approving beneficial and much-needed revisions to its Land Exchange Policy.

The revisions – prepared by Auditor Brown and his team with the input of agricultural, conservation, and sportsmen’s groups – reflect the principle that decisions about the people’s land should be made by elected officials accountable to voters under the Montana Constitution, not bureaucrats.

The adoption of a new land exchange policy represents a major victory for Montana’s public lands, public schools, ranchers, and recreationists.

“As a fourth-generation Montanan, I know our state’s residents treasure our public lands and guard them jealously,” Brown said. “We should not be selling them off, locking them away, or letting them sit trapped in a broken process that limits access and shortchanges Montana schoolchildren. We should be managing them for the people, for public access, and for the long-term benefit of the trust.”

Montana’s trust lands face real challenges. Many trust lands are fragmented or landlocked, which can lead to limited revenue generation, increased management costs, and restricted public access. Brown’s motion points to several problems tied to the existing land exchange policy, such as growing conflicts involving water disputes, corner-crossing concerns, and checkerboarded parcels that are difficult to manage and may reduce long-term income potential for Montana schools.

The revisions include giving the Land Board greater visibility into the application and review process for land exchanges, improving transparency and consistency of land exchange decisions, supporting fiduciary obligations to trust beneficiaries, and reducing unnecessary discretionary decision points within the agency review process.

“Montanans did not elect an unaccountable bureaucracy to rule over trust land from behind a desk,” Brown continued. “Voters from across the Treasure State elected a Land Board to make tough decisions in the open, protect our public lands heritage, and fight for the people who actually own these lands. That is exactly what we did today. This vote takes power away from unelected gatekeepers and returns it to the elected Land Board where it belongs.”

Click HERE to view an FAQ on the updated land exchange policy. A copy of Auditor Brown’s motion at the Land Board is also available HERE.

Key Directional Shifts

• Board-Centric Oversight: the 2026 draft shifts meaningful decision-making authority to the Board at multiple stages – preliminary review, consultant approval, and extension requests – that were previously handled administratively by the Department.

• Formalized Public Engagement: public participation is elevated from a procedural requirement to a structural design principle, with seven enumerated opportunities built into the process architecture.

• Applicant Guidance: the 2026 draft provides substantially more guidance to applicants about what constitutes a favorable exchange, what factors are weighted, and how the Board will evaluate specific scenarios. This is intended to reduce the cost of unfavorable applications.

• Process Transparency: the addition of the process flowchart, FAQ, and explicit Board decision options at each stage reflects a commitment to a transparent, documented process.

• Closing Completeness: by adding closing/execution and possession steps in the accompanying process materials, the 2026 draft package creates a fuller lifecycle guide rather than focusing only on the approval decision.

• Fiduciary Framing: the 2026 draft more explicitly grounds the entire policy in the Board’s constitutional and statutory fiduciary obligations to the trust and its beneficiaries, setting a clearer legal foundation for all policy decisions.

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