County anxiously awaits to see if SRS will slip through Congress one more year

By Elizabeth Morgan

Several articles have appeared in the media lately regarding the chances of reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS) by Congress this next year. The issue was at a standstill when Congress broke for the holidays and will resume in January.

The Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program was created in 2000 to help counties fund the services they could no longer afford because of lost tax revenue. Thirty-five of 44 Idaho counties receive SRS payments, and Idaho ranks third in the country in total SRS dollars. But the program was always intended as a safety measure until Congress could find a more permanent solution.

The White House threatened a veto on the last bill from House Republicans calling for an increase in logging across all national forests. Opponents said it would jeopardize the habitat of endangered species, increase lawsuits and limit the president’s ability to create national monuments.

Hopefully, the break will allow both sides to entertain proposals somewhere in the middle that will provide a viable solution.

Clearwater County Commissioner Don Ebert said, “The county wouldn’t feel the impact immediately. Primarily, county roads and the Sheriff’s Office would be affected if some compensation isn’t made. There are a lot of counties in Idaho that will be in a bad way if it doesn’t come through.”

Ebert hopes to have an answer within the next month, “However, I will not be surprised if it should take longer,” he said.

The county will receive Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funds for this year.

The National Association of Counties (NACo) reported earlier this month that lawmakers appointed $372 million for PILT in its end-of-year spending package for 2015.

“Because National Forest counties are entitled to more PILT funding, the two programs are closely linked,” wrote Brian Namey with NACo. “Without securing full SRS funding before PILT payments are disbursed in mid-2015, there will be a significant impact on the funds available for all counties with federal lands.”

County to receive 1.1 million from SRS

By Elizabeth Morgan

Any day now Clearwater County will receive $1.1 million from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS), (originally the Craig-Wyden Bill) of the $28 million distributed to Idaho. The funds of SRS are generated by the U.S. Forest Service, are intended to help communities such as ours in several ways; one is to improve the environment within our forested Federal Lands and assist counties in maintaining the forests and develop wildfire protection plans. Another goal is to help provide jobs to those who live in areas where no taxes are generated due to being Federal Lands. Local resource advisory committees (RAC) are formed to recommend how the money is spent and to oversee the projects needed within their region.

For Clearwater County, much of the money will be spent to help maintain county roads, a major priority and ongoing expense to the county, which property taxes just can’t realistically accommodate. One of the reasons the county’s tax base is so low is that fifty-three percent of Clearwater County land is owned by the federal government, 14 percent by the state, and another one percent is owned by the Nez Perce Tribe. In other words, a little more than two-thirds of the county’s land, depends on the other third to generate the taxes needed to supply the entire county.

In addition to the county’s $1.1 million awarded by the government, North Central Idaho received it’s share ($785,000) of an additional $30 million distributed nationally to complete projects to benefit the country’s forests.

County Commissioner Don Ebert is a member of the RAC to oversee our area, and recently attended a meeting in Grangeville to discuss how the money is designated to projects on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. Most notably in the discussion was $195,000 to be put towards Weitas Bridge, an 80 year old bridge that spans the North Fork of the Clearwater River at Weitas Creek, which was closed to pedestrians and vehicles three years ago. the bridge provided access to the popular campground and a trailhead at the mouth of Weitas Creek. The exact cost to repair the bridge is still undetermined, as it awaits several assessments to dictate what needs to be done, but work is expected to resume this year and well into 2015.

Some of the their projects which were awarded funds included: $60,000 for the Clearwater Basin Collaborative; $62,000 for stand exams on the forest; $70,000 for treating weeds; $43,000 for plantings and stream channel restoration associated with the Little Slate Project on the Salmon River Ranger District; $34,500 for sign installation on the North Fork and Palouse ranger districts; $88,000 for the Selway Bitterroot-Frank Church Foundation, a group that helps the agency maintain trails; $54,000 for motorized trail work on the Salmon River Ranger District; $27,000 for trail work in the Hells Canyon Wilderness; $20,000 for recreation site maintenance work on the North Fork and Palouse ranger districts; $40,000 for trail work in various other locations of the forest; and $91,500 for various other projects.

Questions for additional funding next year add uncertainty to the entire situation, statewide as the government has authorized SRS funds on a yearly basis. The SRS Act was passed by Congress in 2000 to aid states with large tracts heavily timbered and Federal Lands throughout 2006. Congress extended the Act the following year, then in 2008, reauthorized the funds for four more years. Since then, it has existed on a year by year reauthorization.

“We’re glad to have it,” said Commissioner Don Ebert, “We feel like it’s an obligation of the government to provide us with the additional money. We use it prudently, and continue to plod forward.”

Federal government wants Idaho school funds back

The federal government has sent a letter to the governor’s office demanding a return of 5.1 percent of the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funds that were distributed to counties, highway districts, schools, and Resource Advisory Committees (RAC’s) across Idaho. 

The letter allows the Governor’s office two options: a) the money can be collected back from all the receiving entities at 5.1 percent, or b) 5.1 percent of the total can be withheld from the Resource Advisory Committees.

In an effort to protect the taxpayers of Clearwater County, the commissioners sent a letter to the governor requesting that he choose the second option. If the monies were withheld from the tax supported entities it could result in higher property taxes.  
The RAC’s don’t receive any local property tax dollars. The RAC’s were established as part of the original legislation that started payments to local entities to compensate them for revenue losses caused by cutbacks in logging on federal forest lands. RAC’s are made up of representatives from a wide variety of groups interested in the management activities on the forest. The RAC’s get a percentage of the secure rural schools’ money each year to spend on special projects on the National Forest.  
This is the last payment under the Secure Rural Schools legislation, and the odds of getting it reauthorized are looking dismal. The tax supported entities who just received their last check are facing significant revenue shortfalls in the next fiscal year. Clearwater County’s portion is over $550,000, all of which goes into the road department. The local highway district and schools receive lesser amounts.  
When asked to comment on the return of SRS dollars, Commissioner Stan Leach said, “This is indicative of the state of affairs in Washington, D.C. right now. The federal government is going back on its promise that it made to support roads and schools when the forests were put into reserve in 1908. So, not only can we not count on that support into the future, we can’t even cash the checks that have already been sent. This really points out the need for more active forest management so that we can pay our own way and not have to count on the whims of Washington, D.C.”  
There are several efforts underway to increase forest management. Commissioner Don Ebert is working as part of the Clearwater Basin Collaborative to accomplish this. Commissioner Leach is working with the other county commissioners around the state to establish a Community Forest Trust, where a portion of forest lands would be managed on a sustainable basis with generated revenues helping to offset some of the shortfalls created by expiration of the SRS legislation.  
There is also an effort to authorize another SRS type bill, but even that would only be a temporary fix.

“A permanent solution has to be found,” said the commissioners, “because even if the SRS funds stop coming, the needs that those funds pay for will not.”