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Show Garfield County Receives $197,789 In PILT Funds For Fiscal Year 1997 Garfield County has received $197,789 from the Bureau of Land Management for Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) for fiscal year 1997, compared with $214,106 during FY 1996, and $194,379 in 1995. The BLM paid a total of $113 million to 2,327 local government units across the United States in accordance with the 1976 PILT Act. The Bureau of Land Management, Manage-ment, an agency of the Interior Department, De-partment, distributes the PILT payments to eligible units of local governments each year. The payments pay-ments are intended to offset the loss of tax revenue to states and localities locali-ties caused by the presence of tax-exempt tax-exempt Federal land within then-jurisdictions. then-jurisdictions. "PILT payments help local governments carry out such vital services as firefighting and police protection; construction of public schools and roads; and search and rescue operations," said BLM director direc-tor Pat Shea. "These payments are one of the ways that the federal government can fulfill its role of being a good neighbor to local communities. This is an especially important role for the BLM, which manages more land than any other federal agency." The annual PILT payments are made for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the BLM, the National Na-tional Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (all agencies of the Interior Department), the U.S. Forest Service (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and for federal water projects and some military installations. Congress appoints PILT payments pay-ments every year according to a formula that includes population and the amount of federal land within an affected county. These payments are in addition to other federal revenues that the federal government transfers to the states. These revenues are derived from commercial activities on federal lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing, and timber harvesting. har-vesting. The BLM has distributed more than two billion dollars in PILT payments to local governments govern-ments since these payments began in 1977. All states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are receiving receiv-ing PILT funds for Fiscal Year 1997, which ends Sept. 30. The states with the counties that receive the largest amounts are: New Mexico, Mex-ico, $11,153,023; California, $11,144,626; Arizona, $9,439,209; Utah, $9,308,159; Montana, $8,923,334; Idaho, $7,719,506; and Alaska, $6,780,950. |