County gets $3.3 million from feds
Money in lieu of property taxes
Tulare County was given $3,329,700 in Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funding for 2017, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced Monday.
In all, California received a total of $48.3 million in payments to all 58 counties. The payments are California’s share of the record $464.6 million distributed to 1,900 local governments around the country this year — the largest amount ever allocated in the PILT program’s 40-year history.
“As a kid who grew up in northwest Montana and whose sons graduated from the same high school as I did, I know how important PILT payments are to local communities that have federal lands. These investments are one of the ways the federal government is fulfilling its role of being a good land manager and good neighbor to local communities,” said Secretary Zinke.
PILT are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within their boundaries. Tulare County has thousands of acres owned by the federal government and not subject to property taxes.
The payments are made annually for taxexempt federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (all agencies of the Interior Department), the U.S. Forest Service (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and for federal water projects and some military installations. PILT payments are one of the ways the Federal Government can fulfill its role of being a good neighbor to local communities.
Using a formula provided by statute, the annual PILT payments to local governments are computed based on the number of acres of federal land within each county or jurisdiction and the population of that county or jurisdiction.
Fresno, Kings, Kern, and Tulare counties, which make up the 21st Congressional District, will receive $9,075,096 in funding for fiscal year 2017, an increase of more than $175,000 from fiscal year 2016.
Of the four counties, Tulare County received the most.
Following the announcement from the United States Department of the Interior, Congressman David G. Valadao (R-21st District), who, as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, advocates on behalf of the PILT program stated, “Ensuring the communities I represent receive federal funding to help offset property tax loss due to federal lands within their boundaries is incredibly important.”