WASHINGTON – While in Colorado last week, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet emphasized the need to reinstate funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes, often called PILT payments.
PILT allocates federal funds to local governments that have large tracts of federal land in order to offset losses in property taxes. However, PILT funding was not included in the federal budget bill passed by Congress on Jan. 15.
Bennet, D.-Colo., met with county commissioners and local officials on Jan. 20 and Jan. 24 to discuss the importance of PILT funding. He, along with other Western legislators including Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., are fighting to include PILT funding in the Farm Bill. Bennet serves on the Farm Bill Conference Committee, tasked with reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions.
“These are critical payments that the federal government owes to local Colorado communities,” Bennet said. “The fact that we even have to have this fight is evidence of the wide gap that exists between what happens in Washington and what folks actually deal with on the ground out here in Colorado. And it’s why we have to keep fighting to make sure this problem is fixed and Colorado voices are heard.”
La Plata County Commissioner Julie Westendorff said PILT funding the county receives is used for search-and-rescue efforts, 60 percent of which involve people from outside the county, as well as firefighting, road maintenance and responses to crimes committed on federal land, such as the shooting of a Fort Lewis College student in 2012 in the San Juan National Forest.
Westendorff was among the county commissioners from the Western Slope who met with Bennet on Jan. 20. La Plata County received $607,959 in PILT funding last year. Payments are calculated based on population, receipt-sharing and the amount of federal land in the county.
“It was a good meeting for Sen. Bennet to hear real-life stories from the counties,” she said. “This is not a subsidy; it helps us offset costs.”
Westendorff is hopeful PILT funding will go through with the Farm Bill. The county planned to receive $575,000 when it calculated this year’s budget and will have to make significant cuts if PILT funding is not reinstated. The county already has lost 47 percent of its property-tax base as a result of lower valuations and reduced natural-gas tax payments since 2010.
Bennet and Udall met with a larger group of county commissioners in Denver on Friday, during their monthly meeting through Colorado Counties, Inc. Bennet spokesman Adam Bozzi said the senator wants to hear as many stories as he can about the importance of PILT funding, so he can make a stronger case in Washington.
Bennet and Udall, along with a bipartisan coalition of 16 senators, sent a letter Jan. 15 to the leadership of the Farm Bill conference committee to encourage a renewal of PILT funding in the committee’s final report. There is pressure to pass the Farm Bill by the end of the month, and Bozzi says only a few issues have yet to be negotiated.
“We’re more than optimistic, but we have to keep fighting and continue to explain to Washington why this funding is so important,” he said.
PILT has been around since the 1970s and was included in the general budget up until 2008. Thereafter, it was passed for five years along with legislation for the Troubled Relief Asset Fund, and last year, it was included in the transportation bill.
Udall, along with Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced a bill to permanently reauthorize and fund the program Jan. 13. The bill was co-sponsored by Bennet.
“There is a growing bipartisan consensus that rural communities that lack a local tax base due to neighboring federal lands need help to support their police departments, firefighters, schools and other services that help maintain public safety and our quality of life,” Udall said in a news release. “I look forward to working across the aisle and continuing to fight to pass this critical legislation.”
Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, also is working to reinstate PILT funding. Earlier this month, Tipton voted against the budget bill, citing the need for PILT funding. The 3rd Congressional District, which Tipton represents, received $21 million of Colorado’s $32 million of PILT payments in 2013.
In a previous interview with The Cortez Journal, Tipton called the omission of PILT funding from the bill “a blatant disregard” of a very important Western issue.
“I don’t understand the mind-set on both sides of the aisle,” he said. “It is not a partisan issue.”
Katie Fiegenbaum is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald. Reach her at kfiegenbaum@durangoherald.com
