County gets $2.6 million to offset nontaxable land
Flathead County will receive $2.6 million this year from the federal government under a long-running program that compensates local governments for nontaxable federal land.
The appropriation is about $200,000 more than last year’s payment to Flathead County.
Montana’s slice of the payments-in-lieu-of-taxes pie is $31.8 million, up from just over $30 million last year. A record $464.6 million will be distributed to 1,900 local governments around the United States — the largest amount ever allocated in the federal program’s 40-year history, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a press release.
Flathead County’s payments-in-lieu allocation is the largest among Montana counties. Ravalli County will receive $2.37 million this year; Lewis and Clark County will get $2.45 million; Missoula County will get $1.77 million; and Lincoln County’s allocation is $644,300.
About 70 percent of Flathead County’s 2.44 million acres is federally owned.
Each year Flathead County earmarks $500,000 of the payments-in-lieu money to the road department, and that will continue again this year, county Administrator Mike Pence said.
“We’ll set aside $1 million [of this year’s PILT allocation] for the future jail project,” Pence said. “The rest will stay in our PILT fund, unappropriated but available. More than likely it will go to the jail fund.”
The county has been setting aside money for years with the goal of building a new jail to replace its overcrowded adult detention center.
Keeping some of the county’s payments-in-lieu money in reserve would provide a buffer if Congress doesn’t continue the revenue-sharing payments to forest counties through the Secure Rural Schools program. That program expired in September 2015 and hasn’t been reauthorized. Forest counties received their last authorized SRS payments last year, and the availability of future payments remains in jeopardy, according to the National Association of Counties.
Secure Rural Schools funding gave Flathead County about $900,000 annually for roads, Pence said, and local schools also received funding through the program.
An increase in gas-tax revenue will help offset some of the loss, Pence said.
“If we get a ‘no’ on SRS, then the commissioners will go back to discussing the loss if SRS truly goes away,” Pence said.
One option would be to adjust the road budget to align with the increase from gas-tax revenue and the loss of Secure Rural Schools funding, he added.
Flathead County used its payments-in-lieu-of-taxes allocation last year to help pay for the South Campus Building and the conversion of the old jail facility into the County Attorney’s office complex. About $180,000 was used to help complete the sky bridge built between the Earl Bennett Building and the South Campus Building, Pence said. Most of the sky bridge money came from the city-county health department’s budget.
In recent years Flathead County has used the federal money for projects such as main Courthouse renovation, construction of a parking lot next to the Earl Bennett Building and to help buy the building that houses the Montana State University Extension Service and 4-H program.
Tax-exempt federal lands include those administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest and for federal water projects and some military installations.
Since payments-in-lieu-of-taxes payments began in 1977, the Department of the Interior has distributed nearly $8 billion dollars to states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.
The department collects in excess of $8.8 billion in revenue annually from commercial use of public lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting, the department said.
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.