U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today announced Monday that 37 local governments in Washington are receiving a total of $21.3 million in Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funding for 2017.
The payments are Washington’s share of the record $464.6 million distributed to 1,900 local governments around the country this year, the largest amount ever allocated in the program’s 40-year history.
Grays Harbor County will get $240,891 for its 145,464 acres of federal forest land. Pacific will receive $240,891 for its 2,587 acres. The county receiving the highest payoff is Chelan County, $2,852,102 for its nearly 1.5 million acres of federal timber land.
“As a kid who grew up in northwest Montana and whose sons graduated from the same high school as I did, I know how important (these) payments are to local communities that have federal lands,” said Zinke.
Payments in Lieu of Taxes are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within their boundaries. These payments help local governments carry out such vital services as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.
“Rural America, especially states out west with large federal land holdings, play a big part in feeding and powering the nation and also in providing recreation opportunities, but because the lands are federal, the local governments don’t earn tax revenue from them,” said Zinke. “Payments in Lieu of Taxes investments often serve as critical support for local communities as they juggle planning and paying for basic services, such as public safety, firefighting, social services and transportation.”
The payments are made annually for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and for federal water projects and some military installations.
Using a formula provided by statute, the annual payments to local governments are computed based on the number of acres of federal land within each county or jurisdiction and the population of that county or jurisdiction.
The Interior Department collects more than $8.8 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on public lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. A portion of these revenues is shared with states and counties. The balance is deposited in the U.S. Treasury, which in turn pays for a broad array of federal activities, including Payments in Lieu of Taxes funding to counties.
