Twelve Years
The Governor has said that the reason he is using twelve years as the multiplier for his water budget numbers is that is the number of budget years that cover the first phase of the Cooperative Agreement on the Platte River. The $2.7 million in State General Funds that he is proposing are for all of the State water issues but primarily for the Platte and Rebublican River Basins.
He is also counting a portion of the DNR operating budget ($3 million a year) as a contribution to solving the problem. This is his estimate of how much of the DNR's time is spent on Platte and Rebublican Basin water issues. The total DNR budget is $8.7 million a year so by his estimate about a third of the DNR's time is spent on regulating these two Basins.