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Show Grand receives $279,719 of in-lieu federal money Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus announced last week that payments totaling $96.6 million will be made Friday by the !' ireau of Land Management to i,.r82 local governments with certain tax exempt Federal lands. These payments are made annually in lieu of property taxes which could otherwise be levied on certain Federal lands. Current payments are for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1978. In Grand County, the federal payment amounted to $279,719, according to County Clerk Barbara Domenick. That figure was nearly $40 thousand higher than the in-lieu payment received last year. Highest payments for fiscal year 1978 will go to local governments in New Mexico, $9,686,314; followed closely by California, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. The Secretary also announced that additional payments totaling $900,000 will be made to 29 units of local government in Colorado and Alaska that were underpaid in fiscal year 1977. The underpayments resulted from the use of incorrect data in computing the "in lieu" payments. Secretary Andrus further advised ad-vised that the Department is still waiting for a decision from the General Accounting Office and Interior's Board of Land Appeals on two highly technical legal issues raised by several local governments after distribution of last year's "in lieu" payments. The issues involved involv-ed the eligibility of certain Federal lands withdrawn from the public domain in compulation of the "in lieu" payments, as well as inclusion of public land revenues returned to States by the Federal Government and passed through to school districts. Each of the affected local governments will be advised as soon as these issues are resolved. These annual payments are authorized by the Payments in Lieu of Taxes Act of 1976. The law specifies that payments are to be made for Federal lands classified in the Act as "entitlement lands." Approximately 436 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Reclama-tion, the National Park Service, the Forest Service and the Army Corps of Engineers qualified for the fiscal year 1978 payments. In lieu payments are handled by the Bureau of Land Management because it is the aclministrator of the largest amount of Federal public land. Overall, payments for fiscal year 1978 will be about $3.3 million less than local governments received last year. A majority of the governments, however, received higher payments. Secretary Andrus said the primary reason for reduced payments pay-ments is that certain states passed through to local governments a greater portion of the revenue from the sale of public land resources that the Federal Government returned to the States. These revenues passed through to local Cont. on Page A6 1 I Federal money received here j Cont. from Page Al J governments limit the amount of m j lieu payments. I During the past fiscal year, the J Federal Government distributed J more than $187 million to the states ! from the sale of timber, minerals, I and grazing privileges. The States reported that $86.9 million of this j money from the Federal Govern- I ment was passed through to I eligible units of local governments, j Other factors contributing to j the decrease in payments are the transfer of lands out of Federal ownership and, to a minor degree, j population changes. These two I factors, plus the shared revenues J from the sale of public land j resources, are among the elements I used to determine payments under I the in lieu of taxes legislation, j Secretary Andrus pointed out j that the $100 million Congress I appropriated for the "in lieu" tax mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm payments in FY 1978 was allocated j under a payment formula that provides a floor and ceiling for I payments to eligible units of I government based on acreage, j population, and existing timber, ! grazing, and mineral lease pay- j ments. Under the formula set by i the Act, payments can run from 10 cents to 75 cents an acre, but no I payment can exceed one million I dollars. The payments go to local ' governmental units such as coun- ' ties, county-type governments, ' , townships, and independent cities. j The 1976 Act also authorizes additional in lieu payments for five years for lands acquired after I December 30, 1970 for additions to I the Redwood National Park, the ' National Park System and National ! Forest Wilderness Areas, if these j lands were subject to property taxation before they were acquired. I |