The Bush administration is targeting federal legislation which
provides guaranteed payments to local municipalities from timber
receipts on the Allegheny National Forest.
The legislation – The Secure Rural Schools program – would “ramp
down” funding under the program over the next few years and be
eliminated altogether by the year 2013, officials said.
The program provides much-needed extra funding to school
districts and local municipalities, in part, for housing
rehabilitation, infrastructure improvements, code enforcement and
to finance additional projects. The program is just one of several
federal initiatives under close scrutiny by the administration –
all of which greatly impact rural areas such as McKean County and
the surrounding region.
Already, the U.S. Forest Service has cut back on the number of
board feet of timber that can be harvested on the forest to 17
million board feet.
“It’s wrong to reduce the timber harvest so that communities’
payment receipts are impacted, while simultaneously making cuts to
the guaranteed payment option,” U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa.’s,
Communications Director Chris Tucker said. “(The congressman) won’t
support a plan that seeks to do that.”
Tucker, who said Peterson continues to be a strong advocate for
increasing the timber harvest on the forest to a level that more
closely resembles what it can sustain, said the program stands to
be funded at $242 million in fiscal year 2007, according to the
administration’s budget request.
The administration wants to fund the program – established six
years ago – for another five years, offsetting some of the costs by
selling an estimated $800 million worth of national forest
land.
Forest Service officials said the sales are needed to raise the
funds over the next five years to pay for the county and school
district projects through the program. Officials said the land
sales will range anywhere between less than an acre to more than
1,000 acres; at this point there are no plans to sell land on the
Allegheny National Forest.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who announced the move on
Friday, said the parcels of land slated to be sold are isolated,
expensive to manage or no longer meet the needs of the national
forest system.
“The (forest) is an absolutely magnificent corner of the world,
but it’s not the greatest tax generator for local communities and
school districts,” Tucker said. “We’re talking about an area of
514,000 acres essentially without a tax base and that’s why this
guaranteed payment option is so important.”
According to Rey, the guaranteed payments would be lowered to 20
percent of the current amount by 2011. After five years, Rey said
the government will look at the reduction level again.
Tucker said Peterson is currently working with U.S. Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Oregon, to reauthorize the program for an additional
seven years and “at a funding level that better recognizes the
unique challenges facing rural communities positioned around huge
areas of tax exempt forest land.”
The reauthorization plan passed the House Resources Committee
last year, according to Tucker.
“We’re hopeful that it will again take the lead in the current
debate over how to best manage and sustain this important
program.”
Last year, McKean County received $1.65 million in Title III
funding through 2004 forest timber receipts, which was distributed
to five different organizations. The funding is filtered down from
the county to the municipalities and school districts for various
uses, including such projects as search, rescue and emergency
services, community service work camps, easement purchases,
forest-related after school programs and fire prevention and county
planning.
The county’s increase in funding the past two years can be
traced to a change in the way the money is disbursed to the local
taxing bodies. The parties receive guaranteed payments from the
federal government instead of sharing the pot with other counties
located within the forest’s boundaries.
