U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oregon)

Grant County will receive more than $3.7 million in federal funding from the Secure Rural Schools act (SRS) and payment-in-lieu of taxes (PILT), the Grant County Court learned last week.

As provided in the 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill signed by President Donald Trump March 23, SRS payments were reauthorized for fiscal years 2017 and 2018.

SRS funding helps provide resources for essential local services like schools, roads and law enforcement in Oregon’s rural forested communities, Rep. Greg Walden said in a press release. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Walden authorized the sale of a portion of the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to pay for the two-year SRS extension.

Grant County’s estimated SRS payment for fiscal year 2017 is $3.1 million. The county’s estimated PILT payment for 2018 will be $651,861.

According to data provided by Grant County Treasurer Julie Ellison, the county received $3.5 million from the Department of Agriculture for fiscal year 2017 but only $200,248 for fiscal year 2018. The county court had a mixed reaction to the news.

“It’s a good deal for us,” Grant County Judge Scott Myers told the Eagle. “It’s not a permanent fix by any stretch of the imagination. We need timber receipts — activity on the forest with monetary benefits to the county.”

Myers said he admired the forest stewardship work performed by Iron Triangle, but that provided local employment without bringing in timber receipts. He recalled a time when local timber mills were busy and more logs were coming in from the forests.

“It made a big difference — more money was available for schools, roads and Grant County’s cities,” he said.

Commissioner Jim Hamsher applauded the reauthorization.

“It’s very good news,” he told the Eagle. “It will make a world of difference for the small cities and schools.”

Reauthorization for two years will enable the cities to include the funding in their future budget plans, Hamsher said. He also noted that Grant County’s share of SRS funding was significantly larger than for other Eastern Oregon counties.

“It’s not even close,” he said.

Commissioner Boyd Britton expressed surprise over the reauthorization at the county court’s March 28 meeting and made it clear he disapproved of the inconsistent year-to-year funding.

All told, Oregon counties will receive more than $185 million from the 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. The bill also increases the amount of PILT funding nationwide by $65 million. Oregon counties received nearly $20 million in PILT payments out of $464 million nationwide last fiscal year. Unlike SRS funding, counties have full discretion on how they can use PILT funding, Myers said.

“This extension of Secure Rural Schools payments is a crucial part of what must be a full-court press to shore up our rural communities in Oregon,” Sen. Ron Wyden said in a press release. “These funds have proven essential to keep our teachers in schools, cops on the beat, roads safe to travel and mental services at hand for residents in rural counties where the federal government owns much of the land.”

By law, 75 percent of the SRS Title I money must go to public road funds and 25 percent to public school funds. The court can choose to allocate up to 20 percent of the total SRS payment to Title II, for special projects on federal lands, or to Title III, for county projects.

Title II projects are prioritized by the Forest Service, the county and Resource Advisory Committees. Title II projects typically benefit fish habitat, trails, forest ecosystem health, noxious weed control and re-establishment of native species.

Title III spending is available to counties for search and rescue, fire prevention and planning, community service work camps, easement purchases and forest-related educational projects.

A change in the current bill promoted by Walden, Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley will allow counties to use Title III money to pay for law enforcement patrols on federal lands as well as training and equipment for emergency response. In the past, SRS funding could be used by counties for emergency response activities but not to prepare for emergency response.

“This has created an illogical policy where, for instance, counties could use these funds to carry out a search and rescue mission, but not for the training and equipment that is necessary to the success of that mission,” Walden, Wyden and Merkley said in a press release.

The 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill also contains provisions that will reduce “fire borrowing” — where the Forest Service uses funding originally budgeted for forest management projects to pay for unexpected firefighting costs instead.

“This bill creates an emergency pot of money for the U.S. Forest Service to use when it exceeds its fire-suppression budget, so federal agencies no longer have to dip into money earmarked for firefighting and prevention, so-called fire borrowing,” Association of Oregon Counties communications director Laura Cleland said in a press release.

“We’re hoping this year’s fire season won’t be that critical, but if it is, we will have the resources we need to deal with it,” AOC executive director Mike McArthur said in the press release.

In addition to a 10-year fire borrowing fix, forest management reforms provided in the 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill include a 3,000-acre categorical exclusion for wildfire resiliency and hazardous fuels reduction projects, expansion of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act’s authority for fuel and fire break projects, authority for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to offer stewardship contracts for up to 20 years and a “good neighbor policy” to help state road departments conduct road maintenance or similar projects on Forest Service land.