Money for land
Payment in lieu of taxes helps counties

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

Services provided to residents of Cibola and McKinley counties, such as sheriff’s deputies, their vehicles and road repairs, are partially paid for by tax money received from the federal government every year.

The catch is, that money has to be renewed in Congress each year and at any time could disappear. The funding is called “PILT,” which stands for Payment in Lieu of Taxes.
It is taxpayer money that is returned to the counties through federal funding, because federal lands such as U.S. Forest Service, BLM, and National Parks Service, are not on tax rolls, hence the name.

Funding is tenuous at best

McKinley County Manager Tom Trujillo said in the county, 89 percent of the county’s land is not on the tax rolls, most of it is reservation land, meaning only 19 percent of the county’s 5,500 square miles is taxable.

This coming fiscal year, July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009, McKinley County will receive $586,126.

Cibola County will receive $1.1 million because about 50 percent of the county is federal land.

Congress has to vote on this program every year, he said, and some day this funding could go away.

“If that happens, we will have to cut our budget and that will affect services,” he said.

McKinley and other counties have a lobbying group that works with Congress to try to get the Senate to fund the program every year.

PILT payments are given to the Western states because that is where the federal lands are in such high percentages to the states and counties, he said.

Denise Webb, of Grants, said she has never heard of PILT, but she believes it is a good idea.

“There is such a high percentage of federal lands in Cibola County, we should get every penny we can,” she said.
“This is not an affluent area, and the roads and drainage areas need to be repaired, and that takes money.”

David Ulibarri, Cibola County manager said: “PILT is never fully funded and some day it could be taken away.”

Trujillo said the Senate has a battle every year, between the senators from the western states and the senators from the eastern seaboard, and so far, the western senators have won every year, although the funding gets less each year.

PILT budgeted less for 2009

This year New Mexico counties will receive $228.5 million for the 22.5 million acres of federal land in the PILT program, which was created in 1976.

The Bush administration has budgeted $195 million for PILT next year. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, a member of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, has requested $267 million, which is $34 million more than distributed last year.

Dolores Marinelli, of Grants, said she has never heard of PILT and needed to have more information before making a comment.

Two other local residents, Lilly Sandoval and Lucy Reed, both of Acoma, also said they never heard of PILT.
“I don’t understand what it is and would like to get more information on it,” Salvador said.

Marinelli said the counties need the funding because the tax base is “not there” to be able to provide the services the residents need.

Ulibarri and Trujillo both said the federal funding goes into the general operating budget for both counties, meaning that money is commingled with other funds and helps pay for local services.

In Cibola County, PILT funds have paid for the operating costs of the detention center until this year.

“This year, for the first time, the detention center is funding itself because we have been leasing our beds to other counties,” Ulibarri said.

Prisoners who are arrested and brought to the Cibola County Detention Center at a rate of $52 per person, per day, which pays for the cost of operating the jail.

This year’s PILT will go toward improving roads in Cibola County, Ulibarri said.

Information: Cibola County, (505) 287-9431; McKinley County: (505) 870-1168.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 285-4560 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.