Greetings,
Many of you may remember the Spotted Owl. Advocates trying to protect the Spotted Owl destroyed the forest industry and the multiple communities dependent on national forests for their jobs and rural way of life. Only to find that time would later prove, the Barred Owl is responsible for having the single most prevalent impact leading to the killing of the Spotted Owl.
The forest industry and rural forest communities have never recovered in the highly impacted western states. The result -No timber, and no jobs, which leads to no economy. Schools’ counties and communities had to find a way to remain in existence. People in those rural communities had no desire to abandon their way of life.
To support those who lost their jobs, livelihood, and communities the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS), based on historic precedent, was enacted in 2000. Called Secure Rural Schools SRS created a safety net for rural forest communities where massive amounts of land were taken off local tax rolls and out of production to create our National Forests (NF). Since 2000, Congress has reauthorized the SRS Act nine times. However, SRS expired at the end of FY-23, and it again requires Congressional action and reauthorization.
Wherever national forests are located including those in the Lake States Regions, there is great dependence on SRS payments, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) payments, and what are known as Title III payments. For the past several years GLTPA has been fully engaged with the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition (NFCSC) to keep SRS payment intact. It has not been an easy road. The reality is that it has gotten even harder as some federal representatives question the need for SRS because of President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) to harvest more timber from national forests.
In the day NF timber harvest volumes plateaued at approximately 13 billion board feet. Local units of government including schools received money from what was known as the 25% fund. In other words, they received proceeds in the amount of 25% from the sale of timber revenue. At best the new goal under the EO is 4 billion board feet.
Even at today’s stumpage rates and even if harvest went back to the 13 billion board foot level, the amount of money raised would fall significantly short of current SRS payments. The current level of SRS funding nationwide is approximately $274 million per year. At the highest 25% fund level the revenue would be approximately $144 million.
You might ask, why is GLTPA engaged in this matter?
Rural schools are where our future workers will be educated. Therefore, it is extremely important to ensure rural schools remain open and affordable. I can assure you there will be very few city kids chomping at the bit to work in forestry jobs. Maybe if enough of inner-city children have an opportunity to attend Trees for Tomorrow or other types of forest related activities such as Log-a Loads or maybe their own school forest activities like the children at the Eagle River WI Northland Pines Forest, there’s a chance they will be interested, trained and prepared for a forestry career.
On May 12, 13, 14 and 15, 2025, The National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition held a Washington DC Fly-In to lobby for SRS to be included in the budget Reconciliation process and included in the One Big Beautiful Budget being proposed by the President. Approximately forty pro-active County Executives, Schools Superintendents, Administrators and Finance Directors attended. Attendees came from Florida, Washington State, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, West Virginia, Arizona, California, Oregon, Montana, Texas and Mississippi, and one representative from the Lake States Region which was GLTPA. Considering that Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin receive just under $7.1 million of this revenue a person must wonder why there was no representation to help ensure Lake States SRS is reauthorized for fiscal years 2024, 2025, and 2026. Incidentally, SRS was included in the House version of the Budget Reconciliation package passed by Congress with Congressmen Tom Tiffany and Jack Bergman as co-sponsors.
Maybe no one was aware, maybe another group is doing some additional work, and we don’t know about it, or maybe it’s in an insignificant amount of money in today’s economy. Granted, some schools did receive a portion of money from the 25% fund for 2024, however that still leaves a deficit of 41% for MI, 53% for MN and 35% for Wisconsin. Regardless, given how tight school budgets are it would be hard to imagine this is an insignificant amount of money to lose.
At any rate more works needs to be done with the Senate in Congress for the inclusion of the SRS expenditure in the budget. Keep in mind the inclusion represents only three years of funding. At some point a permanent resolution must be found and who will do that work? To the best of my knowledge NFCSC is the only organization focused solely on this issue and has done the lion’s share of work organizing events and making visits to Capitol Hill on a regular basis. Given the amount of work they do on a very limited budget, I am quite certain they would appreciate some financial support until this work is done for a permanent funding solution. Their contact can be found at the end of this article.
Below is a short history of SRS provided by members of the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition which may be useful in educating those who are not familiar with SRS and why it exists. This is valuable information and should be kept upfront and center to ensure the longevity of rural schools and the economic health of rural communities.
Until next Month,
Henry
What is SRS and why do we have it? Remembering the history…
The President of the United States was given the authority to create Forest Reserves in 1891. In the next six years over 40 million acres of forest land was placed in Forest Reserves. Across the west, rural county commissioners and school leaders expressed grave concerns over the withdrawal of large blocks of land from settlement, economic development, and taxation within their counties. Many communities were also highly dependent on these lands for grazing, timber, and water. Rural public concern was growing about:
a) the purpose of these lands and how they would be managed; and
b) the economic impacts of locking up these lands – especially the impacts on roads and schools.
In 1897, Congress finally specified that the Forest Reserves would be used for three purposes:
In 1905, the Forest Reserves were renamed National Forests and Forest Service was founded to manage the lands. Presidents continued to set aside more lands by proclamation. Rural county commissioners and school superintendents voiced concern. By the mid 1900’s over 153 million acres had been set aside as National Forests.
President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Forest Service were so concerned that rural county opposition would politically compromise the future of the U.S. National Forests, that they proposed a new concept – revenue sharing. In 1908 Congress approved a bill that specified that 25% of all revenues raised on National Forests would be sent to counties which contained these forests to be used for county roads and public schools. For over 100 years, this 1908 revenue sharing act has provided critical revenues for rural counties and schools.
“The Compact”
It is important to remember that these funds are to mitigate for the removal of these lands from economic development and settlement – in order to form our National Forest system. This was a compact with the rural citizens of America to make possible the establishment of our National Forests.
From 1908 until the late 1980’s this “Revenue Sharing” system worked well for forest counties and schools by providing a steady and significant income stream. By the late 1980’s national environmental laws and aggressive environmental organizations caused most national forests to discontinue or drastically cut grazing, timber management, and mining. As a result, U.S. Forest Service revenues declined very rapidly as did the 25% Forest Revenue receipts to counties and schools. By 1998 these revenues had declined by over 70%.
The Secure Rural Schools and Communities Act (SRS)
In December 2000, with support from the National Forest Counties & Schools Coalition (NFCSC), the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Act was signed into law. This bill provided Title I payments to counties (for roads) and to public schools, it also provided payments to counties to invest in Title II Forest Improvement Projects on National Forests and Title III for specific projects and programs in counties. The Act also authorized the counties to create, in cooperation with the USFS, collaborative Resource Advisory Committees. This Act was enormously successful in that it restored county and school revenues to their 1980’s and early 90’s levels, resulting in restoration of public services and school programs. The 62 Resource Advisory Committees completed over 4000 projects on National Forest lands without a single lawsuit or appeal. The original SRS authorization expired in September 2006.
2007 – A one-year extension of SRS is approved
2008 – A four-year extension is approved with a new funding formula and a 10 percent reduction each year.
Due to the negative impact of the new formula, several states are designated as “transition states’ and are allowed to use the old formula through 2010.
2012 – A one-year extension is approved with a 5 percent reduction in funding from 2011.
2013 – Another one-year extension is approved with an additional 5 percent reduction in funding.
2015 – A two-year extension is approved for FY 2014-2015 with additional 5 percent reduction each year.
2016 – Congress fails to act and SRS expires.
2018 – Congress approves two-year reauthorization of SRS for FY-17 & FY-18 with continued 5% reduction
each year (no funding provided for FY-16).
2019 – Congress approves two-year reauthorization of SRS for FY-19 & FY-20 with another 5% annual reduction.
2021 – Congress extends SRS for FY-21, FY-22 & FY-23 at 2017 funding amounts (without annual reductions).
2024 – SRS has expired and requires reauthorization by Congress.