Payments in Lieu of Taxes::Feds Only Pay Counties 55% of what they owe.

An action  brief by Col. Randy Givens U. S. Army (retired) rg2162@ev1.net

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Division of Realty website at: http://realty.fws.gov/nwrf2.html shows that their budget request for PILT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes" http://www.blm.gov/pilt/ or federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable Federal lands within their boundaries)  is only 55% of what they owe the counties.

USFWS likes to whine that it is Congress, which shortchanges the Counties .... However, Congress only goes along with what the USFWS says it wants to pay... which is about half what it owes the counties. See the third from the last sentence at http://realty.fws.gov/nwrf2.html, which starts with "The National Wildlife Refuge Fund 2003 budget request..."

To understand how/why they do this, think of the entire federal budget for a year as a pie. USFWS knows that it will only get so big of a slice of the pie. They know what they want to do with the money they get... buy more land. This is in spite of the fact that they owe the counties a bunch of money. Therefore, to try to hide the truth, they ask Congress for only half of what they owe us, and then blame Congress for not funding PILT at 100%.

Each year, the USFWS sends its Refuge Managers to the County Commissioners and make a big deal of presenting the PILT check to the County, with the excuse that they would pay more, but Congress would not give them all the money. That is a lie, and they know it.

One technique we can use against them is to anticipate their dog and pony show, and expose it for what it is. Just before show time,  we need to get the County Commissioner's attention, with copies of the USFWS Budget Request, and show them that the Feds lie. When the USFWS comes to show off and present the check, the Commissioners call him on the lie and write a letter to Congress asking for future 100% funding for PILT. If the Commissioners will not do it, then get local tax activists to publicly  accuse the Commissioners of not doing their job.

This can help by
1. Getting the Counties the money, they need to help offset the USFWS theft
of their land/tax base.