Senate Engrossed

State of Arizona

Senate

Fifty-second Legislature

First Regular Session

2015

SENATE CONCURRENT MEMORIAL 1010

A CONCURRENT MEMORIAL

urging the United States Congress to provide full long‑term funding for the Payment In Lieu of Taxes program and to reauthorize secure rural schools and community self-determination act funding.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

To the Congress of the United States of America:

Your memorialist respectfully represents:

Whereas, the State of Arizona is composed of 113,417 square miles of land, of which 17% is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, 15% is managed by the United States Forest Service, 2% is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 4% is managed by the National Park Service, 4% is military land and 28% is tribal land.� Thus, much of the land in Arizona is unavailable for economic development and is not part of the property tax base; and

Whereas, counties are required to provide law enforcement, search and rescue, emergency services, road building and maintenance, and other community services on, or associated with, tax-exempt federally managed public lands; and

Whereas, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program was established in 1976 to offset costs incurred by counties for services provided to the federal government and to the users of federally managed lands located within a county; and

Whereas, the national average PILT payment in fiscal year 2014 was $0.72 per acre, which is far below the amount that federally managed lands would return through both value-based taxation and economic development; and

Whereas, Congress has been unable to pass a long-term funding solution for the PILT program since 2008 and has instead passed last-minute one-year extensions, causing great uncertainty about county finances and services as well as rural school funding; and

Whereas, funding for fiscal year 2015 PILT was included in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act and the Carl Levin and Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act, totaling $442 million, but the fate of� fiscal year 2016 and future years is still unknown; and

Whereas, a lack of certainty for PILT funding places the large, unsustainable burden of providing services on federally managed lands squarely on the backs of local county taxpayers, while the presence of that federally managed land creates barriers to economic opportunities; and

Whereas, rural communities and schools in and around national forests have historically relied on a share of receipts from timber harvests to support education services and roads; and

Whereas, in the 1980s, federal restrictions substantially diminished the revenue-generating timber harvests permitted in these forests; and

Whereas, the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) was passed in 2000 to stabilize and transition payments to counties and schools away from the declining and unreliable share of timber sales; and

Whereas, the failure of Congress to honor the more than 100-year-old contract between the federal government and heavily forested communities by not reauthorizing SRS funding for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 will create budgetary shortfalls for rural counties and school districts; and

Whereas, failure to immediately secure SRS funding for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 and PILT funding for fiscal year 2016 and into the future for Arizona counties will critically impact the local budget process and structural solvency of counties and the public school systems and will substantially compromise their ability to provide essential services, such as health, safety and welfare; and

Whereas, the federal government has the duty to reimburse local jurisdictions for the presence of federally managed public lands in a reliable and consistent manner.

Wherefore your memorialist, the Senate of the State of Arizona, the House of Representatives concurring, prays:

1. That the United States Congress provide full long-term funding for the PILT program to help create financial stability within Arizona's counties.

2. That the United States Congress immediately reauthorize SRS funding for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 and work toward a long-term solution.

3. That the United States Congress work with the State of Arizona and county governments to identify and implement policies to promote economic development on, or associated with, federally managed lands.

4. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit a copy of this Memorial to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona.