As Congress and the Administration wrestle with the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, the Forest Service has the following to say:
At the May 26 meeting of the Southwest Idaho RAC the following projects were funded: Read more…
Here is the list of projects and Title II funds allocated by the North Central Idaho RAC.
Local road and school systems in counties with National Forests have shared in receipts for more than 100 years. And in the past ten years counties could option to accept payments under a law that established a stable payment to mitigate the loss of timber receipts and year to year changes. The reauthorized Secure Rural Schools Act will have one final payment to counties in February 2012. County officials will decide prior to September 30, 2011 the allocation of their payments between Title I (roads and schools), Title II (Federal forest projects) and Title III (county safety projects).
With an uncertain future it seems an appropriate time as any to look back.
The past ten years has afforded an unusual level of stability for Idaho counties (with a few exceptions) so they could anticipate their future payment. The chart at left shows the payments since 1990, with the first decade showing the year to year changes as the timber market in part drove receipts followed by the decrease in the Forest Service timber program in the latter half of the 1990s. (Click on the chart to see a larger picture).
The second decade includes seven years of the Craig-Wyden Act payments and establishment of Titles II and III. Resource Advisory Committees were established across Idaho to recommend projects using Title II funds.
In early May the Bureau of Economic Analysis released their estimates of county-level per capita personal income, and this piece of data allowed the Forest Service to develop a projection of the upcoming Secure Rural Schools Payment. The final payment will occur around January-February 2012 and is referred to oftentimes as the FY 2011 payment or more accurately as the Post-FY 2011 payment.
The Secure Rural Schools Act authorized four annual payments and programmed a ten percent reduction in each payment compared to previous fiscal year. The ten percent reduction was in the total funds available nationwide, and the acutal payment to a county would depend on the complicated formula in the SRS Act.
The total projected payment for Idaho appears to drop about nine percent, slightly less than the nationwide 10 percent. Last year our state total payments went down 14 percent. You can click on the chart at left to view a full size, more readable version.
The chart at left shows the total payment to Idaho counties over the past four years in red and the theoretical payment in each year if the reduction was a simple ten percent. What happened two years ago was a slightly greater than ten percent reduction. Then last year there was a much greater reduction, at a -14.1% well beyond the ten percent drop. The coming payment will go down about 8.7% percent, and the gap between the red and green decreases a little bit.
There is more to this topic but for now we will just show the statewide projection.
On January 3rd, 2011 the Secretary of Agriculture announced the release of the Secure Rural School payments.
More details will come in a future post, for now here’s the numbers for each of the Idaho RACs, both the October 2010 estimate and the Title II payment released.
| Payment (Jan 2011) | Estimate (Oct 2010) | ||
| Idaho Panhandle | $ 769,946 | $ 769,234 | |
| North Central Idaho | $ 963,862 | $ 963,192 | |
| Southwest Idaho | $ 767,620 | $ 767,033 | |
| Central Idaho | $ 870,177 | $ 869,801 | |
| South Central Idaho | $ 120,227 | $ 120,175 | |
| Eastern Idaho | $ 592,382 | $ 592,095 | |
On September 30 each state submitted the annual allocations made by counties that receive forest payments. They allocate between 80 to 85 percent for Title I (roads, schools), eight to 20 percent for Title II and up to seven percent for Title III. (If the county receives less than $100,000 they can put it all in Title I.)
For the Post FY2010 payment the Title II funds are estimated at -
| Idaho Panhandle | $ 769,234 |
| North Central Idaho | $ 963,192 |
| Southwest Idaho | $ 767,033 |
| Central Idaho | $ 869,801 |
| South Central Idaho | $ 120,175 |
| Eastern Idaho | $ 592,095 |
The September 30, 2010 deadline looms for County Commissions across Idaho to make their annual allocations of funds between Title I, II and III funds. A recent analysis courtesy of Seth Grigg at the Idaho Association of Counties shows that the decline in payments to counties will show wide differences when the payments arrive to Idaho in late 2010 or early 2011. A complicated formula in the Secure Rural Schools law is the factor driving these changes.
First, let’s look at the table showing the payment received for post-Federal Fiscal Year 2009 and the projected payment for post-FFY 2011: