Oregon counties split $37 million in federal payments
U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced Thursday that 36 Oregon counties are receiving a total of $37.1 million under the 2019 Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, demonstrating the Trump Administration’s commitment to local communities.
“Payments in lieu of taxes are made to local governments to help offset their inability to tax federal property,” said Secretary Bernhardt. “These payments are one example of the United States striving to be a good neighbor to local communities. This year’s distribution of $514 million to more than 1,900 counties will help small towns pay for critical needs like emergency response, public safety, public schools, housing, social services, and infrastructure.”
PILT 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. The payments are made annually for tax-exempt federal lands administered by U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) agencies including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and for federal water projects and some military installations.
Using a statutory formula, the annual PILT payments to local governments are computed based on the number of acres of federal land within each county or jurisdiction and on the population of that county or jurisdiction. The lands include the national forest and national park systems; lands in the FWS Refuge System; areas managed by the BLM; areas managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water resource development projects; and others.
In Central Oregon, the payments include about $3.2 million to Deschutes County, which has more than 1.4 million acres of federal lands; $2.2 million to Crook County, which a has nearly a million acres; and more than $740,000 to Jefferson County, which has about 300,000 acres of federal land.
Since PILT payments began in 1977, DOI has distributed approximately $9.2 billion dollars to States and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
DOI collects more than $11.9 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 PILT funding.
Individual county payments may vary from year to year as a result of changes in acreage data, which is updated annually by the federal agency administering the land; prior-year Federal revenue sharing payments reported annually by the Governor of each State; and population data, which is updated using information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Federal revenue sharing payments are made to local governments under programs other than PILT during the previous fiscal year, including payments such as those made under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, the Refuge Revenue Sharing Fund, the National Forest Fund, the Taylor Grazing Act, the Mineral Leasing Act, the Federal Power Act, and the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, as authorized.
List of funding by county:
BAKER COUNTY
$1,656,951
BENTON COUNTY
$187,668
CLACKAMAS COUNTY
$1,317,941
CLATSOP COUNTY
$4,140
COLUMBIA COUNTY
$30,339
COOS COUNTY
$642,788
CROOK COUNTY
$2,210,867
CURRY COUNTY
$1,658,460
DESCHUTES COUNTY
$3,172,684
DOUGLAS COUNTY
$2,544,849
GILLIAM COUNTY
$93,222
GRANT COUNTY
$924,601
HARNEY COUNTY
$1,150,621
HOOD RIVER COUNTY
$408,759
JACKSON COUNTY
$1,828,066
JEFFERSON COUNTY
$741,988
JOSEPHINE COUNTY
$1,838,512
KLAMATH COUNTY
$3,204,149
LAKE COUNTY
$1,220,427
LANE COUNTY
$2,167,517
LINCOLN COUNTY
$326,406
LINN COUNTY
$1,007,652
MALHEUR COUNTY
$2,718,439
MARION COUNTY
$411,171
MORROW COUNTY
$384,555
MULTNOMAH COUNTY
$169,160
POLK COUNTY
$116,060
SHERMAN COUNTY
$146,484
TILLAMOOK COUNTY
$277,322
UMATILLA COUNTY
$1,074,251
UNION COUNTY
$1,628,872
WALLOWA COUNTY
$1,074,053
WASCO COUNTY
$442,692
WASHINGTON COUNTY
$38,706
WHEELER COUNTY
$215,244
YAMHILL COUNTY
$133,222
A full list of funding by state and county is available at www.doi.gov/pilt.
