Reid calls for quicker fed funds

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, May 22, 2001 | 10:21 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid wants to guarantee timely payments made by the federal government to Nevada as part of a special program to compensate states that contain nontaxable, federal land.

Reid, D-Nev., has introduced a bill that would make the payments automatic each year, rather than subject to the wrangling of lawmakers.

"By making these funds available on a permanent distribution basis, the money these communities need will be more readily and regularly available," Reid said in a statement.

Since 1977 Congress as part of its appropriations process has allocated Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes, or PILT, money for counties nationwide that have federal land within their borders. That helps the counties pay for roads, schools, fire fighting and police, because local property taxes typically pay much of those public expenses.

Nevada's 17 counties received $7.6 million in PILT payments last year.

Clark County received $1.05 million last year, a tiny fraction of the county's total budget, about $3.2 billion this year.

Federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, own about 87 percent of Nevada. That especially hurts rural counties in terms of collecting property tax money because the U.S. government controls wide swaths of desert.

Clark County funnels the PILT money directly into the general fund, which helps maintain federal lands within the county, said Douglas Bell, county resources manager. While the BLM is the land owner of the land, county-run services, such as firefighting and law enforcement, often respond to calls on the land, Bell said.

Congress typically gets around to doling out PILT money at the end of the year, generally in September. But delays in the appropriations process can hold up the money.