WASHINGTON —The Department of the Interior announced in a news release on Thursday that 29 local governments in Utah will receive a total of $46.2 million in funding for 2023, with Washington and Iron counties receiving over $7 million combined.
Because local governments cannot tax federal lands, annual Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) help to defray the costs associated with maintaining important community services.
Washington County stands to receive $3,589,722 for 1,146,703 acres of land, while Iron County will get $3,905,077 for 1,242,796 acres, according to the department’s website. Beaver, Garfield and Kane counties will receive over $3.5 million.
The payments are made for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the department’s bureaus, including the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service.
In addition, the payments cover federal lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission. Payments are calculated based on the number of acres of federal land within each county or jurisdiction and the population of that county or jurisdiction.
“The Biden-Harris administration is committed to boosting local communities,” Joan Mooney said in the press release.
Mooney serves as principal deputy assistant secretary for policy, management and budget.
“PILT payments help local governments carry out vital services, such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations,” Mooney added. “We are grateful for our ongoing partnerships with local jurisdictions across the country who help the Interior Department fulfill our mission on behalf of the American public.”
Since PILT payments began in 1977, the department has distributed nearly $11.4 billion to states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The department collects more than $26.3 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on public lands. A portion of those revenues is shared with states and counties. The balance is deposited into the U.S. Treasury, which, in turn, pays for a broad array of federal activities, including PILT funding.
Individual payments may vary from year to year as a result of changes in acreage data, which are updated annually by the federal agency administering the land; prior-year federal revenue-sharing payments reported annually by the governor of each state; inflationary adjustments using the Consumer Price Index; and population data, which are updated using information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
A full list of funding by state and county is available on the Department’s Payments in Lieu of Taxes page.
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