Montana timber counties recently lost lots of federal revenue. Local officials say public services are going to suffer as a result. “It’s very scary. We’re pretty bare bones out here the way it is,” said Mineral County Commissioner Duane Simons. “What do we do? We’ve got a four-man road crew. Do you lay four guys off? Do you lay three guys off? We’ve got some real difficult choices ahead of us here.”
He’s talking about the loss of federal “Secure Rural Schools” funds. The program expired this fall and wasn’t reauthorized by Congress. SRS was intended to help support counties that used to rely on federal timber sale revenue.
Last year Montana got $21 million out of $300 million nationwide. This year Congress didn’t renew SRS. That means a lot less money. States are only getting 25 percent of total receipts from federal timber sales. For Montana, that amounts to $2 million.
Mineral County’s Duane Simons adds, “the payment we got on the 25-percent thing now was $70,000. Then they had to rub it in your eye a little bit and they took $5,000 out of that for the sequester thing they set up a couple of years ago. So, Mineral County this year gets a total of $65,000.”
Ravalli County Commissioner Jeff Burrows says he and his colleagues in the Bitterroot Valley are now facing an SRS shortfall of about $725,000.
From Montana Public Radio: https://mtpr.org/post/loss-secure-rural-schools-funding-takes-toll-montanas-timber-counties