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Stressing that many rural county budgets are already stretched thin as they strive to deliver vital services, Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO), today, led a bipartisan group of 46 of his House colleagues in urging Budget Conferees to provide certainty for counties and prioritize funding for the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) program. PILT reimburses local governments for losses in tax revenues due to the presence of large expanses of un-taxable federal lands, ensuring vital funding for infrastructure, law enforcement, education and other essential operations.

Matt Chase, executive director, National Association of Counties (NACo), said counties nationwide applaud the leadership of Rep. Tipton for his attention to PILT, and thanked the group of 47 members of Congress for their strong bipartisan support.

“Congress must keep its promise to counties and ensure that these federal payments are not disrupted,” Chase said. “The PILT program is a critical source of revenue for counties with large areas of tax-exempt federal land within their boundaries. Without the revenue, many counties would be forced to cut services, delay infrastructure maintenance and improvement and eliminate local jobs.”

The text of the letter to Budget Conferees from Tipton and his colleagues follows:

Dear Chairman Ryan, Chairwoman Murray, Ranking Member Van Hollen and Ranking Member Sessions:
 
As you continue to conference on a budget for Fiscal Year 2014, we write to urge you to prioritize funding for the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) program. PILT was first signed into law in October, 1976 and was created to bridge budget shortfalls that many counties face as the result of having large expanses of un-taxable federal lands. As you know, local property and sales taxes typically fund county governments allowing them to provide essential services such as law enforcement, infrastructure and education needs for communities. The inability for counties to collect these local taxes on the extensive acreage of federal lands in their jurisdictions poses a significant burden, and a fully-funded PILT program helps to offset the loss of these critical revenues. Almost 2,000 counties in 49 states depend on some form of PILT disbursement.

The PILT program has been historically underfunded in the past which has been detrimental for Western counties and rural communities. In 2008, legislation was signed into law to correct this and prevent PILT from being subject to annual appropriations, thus providing mandatory funding. Unfortunately, the mandatory requirement to fund the PILT program recently sunset and counties received their last disbursement in June 2013.

We all recognize the current fiscal challenges our nation faces, but prudent, economical uses of our resources can have significant benefits for our economy and local communities. Counties have already begun budgeting for Fiscal Year 2014 and without action from Congress, many will be forced to cut important services and implement budget contingency plans. As you all move toward an agreement on a budget resolution, we urge you to end this uncertainty and prevent further disruption to critical local government operations by providing full-funding for the PILT program. We pledge to work with you to identify the necessary offsets to ensure this program is fully paid for and does not increase direct spending, should mandatory spending for this program not be extended. Thank you for taking the time to consider our comments. 

Sincerely,  

Signed (47): Scott Tipton (R-CO), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Steve Pearce (R-NM), Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-CA), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Raul Ruiz (D-CA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Jim Matheson (D-UT), Greg Walden (R-OR), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Derek Kilmer (R-WA), Joe Heck (R-NV), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Mark Amodei (R-NV), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Dina Titus (D-NV), Glenn Thompson (R-PA), Rick Nolan (D-MN), Steve Daines (R-MT), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Jason Smith (R-MO), Ben Lujan (D-NM), Chris Stewart (R-UT), Dan Benishek (R-MI), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Don Young (R-AK), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Paul Cook (R-CA), David Reichert (R-WA), Robert Hurt (R-VA), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Tim Bishop (D-NY), Ron Barber (D-AZ), Walter Jones (R-NC), John Garamendi (D-CA), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), and Jared Huffman (D-CA).

View a pdf of the letter here.

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