OPINION EDITORIAL
March 22, 2000

Bill would help Idaho’s schools, kids

By George Enneking, Idaho County Commissioner

I am very concerned about the Clinton administration’s proposal to separate the amount of money Idaho's resource dependent counties receive for school and road maintenance from timber harvest activities on federal land. The Administration has no genuine concern for the welfare of the 36 Idaho counties that depend on funds from timber receipts. Their real agenda is to lure county commissioners and school superintendents with promises of steady money. The truth is, the money will never materialize and the victims will be our kids.

The federal government owns seventy-five percent of Idaho's forestland, and because it does not pay property taxes, the presence of that much federal land erodes the tax base in many Idaho counties. Federal land makes up as much as eighty-percent of the land base in some counties, so the impact can be considerable. In order to compensate counties for the lack of tax revenue, policies were put into place in 1908 which returned 25 percent of the revenue generated from federal timber sales to the county where the harvest took place. This revenue, referred to as "25 percent funds," is earmarked to support local schools and road maintenance. Historically, timber harvests were the largest source of revenue. However, the dramatic decline in timber harvest on federal land – eighty-four percent in Idaho in the past decade - has resulted in an equally sharp decline in payments to counties. Benewah County alone saw a 67% decrease in 25% funds in 1999.

Senators Larry Craig and Ron Wyden, with broad support, have jointly introduced a bill to help provide relief and certainty to struggling counties. The Secure Schools and Community Self-Determination Act guarantees counties at least seventy-five percent of the average of the three highest 25% fund payments they received since 1985. Under this bill, payments to counties in Idaho would increase at least fifty-three percent. This would mean a lot to children in the Grangeville area where kids have had to raise private funds for athletics and the hot lunch program. Other districts are contemplating a four day school week. And in Riggins, school kids sold soda on the roadside in order to pay for extra-curricular programs.

Sadly, irresponsible forest management policy has almost eliminated timber harvest on federal land. And this has become the single greatest threat to county funding. Now the same Washington, D.C. bureaucrats who are responsible for the devastation of rural Idaho are asking us to trust them. They are pushing hard to separate the payments counties receive from the productivity of the national forests in exchange for a "guaranteed" payment from the treasury. They want rural county and school officials to accept a welfare check from the government and to stop speaking out for responsible forest management.

The real solution to this problem is the return of reason and responsibility to the Forest Service. But such a transformation may be a long time coming. In the interim, Senators Craig and Wyden have proposed a very good solution – one that could literally make the difference between life and death for some counties. And one which will make things better for our most precious resource – our children.