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Show PUT funds roe tor od Senator Jake Garn has announced the full funding has been restored for the Payments - In - Lieu - Of Taxes (PILT) program, which would give 'Utah counties coun-ties more than $8 million. Utah's senior senator served on the Senate House Conference Committee which considered funding for PILT program as part of the Fiscal Year 1981 Supplemental Sup-plemental Recission Appropriations Ap-propriations Bill. The report re-port still must be approved ap-proved by both Houses of Congress. The conference action restored re-stored $108 million for the program for Fiscal Year 1981. Garn said PILT funds had already beien appropriated appropri-ated by Congress and that most Utah counties had Included In-cluded the PILT funding in their budgets. PILT funds should not be considered In (the same category cate-gory as other federal spending spend-ing programs., The federal government has an obligation obliga-tion to compensate Utah counties for taxes that are lost because of tax exempt federally controlled lands. PILT is not a federal giveaway give-away program, and should be among tM last to be cut. The PILT program operates oper-ates with a very low overhead, over-head, allows for local control con-trol of funds without red tape, and is consistent with previously stated congressional congres-sional and administrative priorities for public lands and energy programs. |