Elected officials from Arizonas fifteen counties unanimously endorsed a resolution urging the United States Congress to immediately provide full funding for the Payment-In-Lieu of Taxes Program, known as PILT. In full support of this action, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors convened a Special Session and passed a resolution respectfully requesting Congress to immediately provide full funding for PILT. PILT has served to help compensate county taxpayers for the cost of providing services on lands held by the federal government, since it was enacted in 1976. PILT funding is a critical resource for Arizonas counties and only partially compensates for the fact that counties cant collect property taxes from federally owned lands. The State of Arizona contains 113,417 square miles of land. Excluding tribal lands, federally owned land comprises 42-percent of the land mass, while private land in Arizona comprises only 17-percent. In 2013, Yuma County received approximately $3.2 million in PILT payments, which represents nearly 5% of the Countys General Fund revenues. The national average PILT payment in Fiscal Year 2013 was $0.66 per acre, far below the amount federal lands would return through both value based taxation and economic development; and Without annual PILT payments, vital services in all 15 Arizona counties, including law enforcement, search and rescue, emergency services, road building and maintenance, and other community services would be severely impacted. The message that we have been carrying to everyone who will listen is that PILT is one of the most critical federal programs in terms of impact at the county level. At just over 1.5 million entitlements acres, Yuma County has one of the largest classifications of federally reserved lands in the United States. The loss of PILT funding would have devastating effects on our local resources and severely limit Yuma Countys ability to provide critical services, added Yuma County Supervisor Lenore Stuart. County Supervisors Association of Arizona CSA is a non-partisan, non-profit research and advocacy organization representing Arizonas 61 county supervisors. For more than 30 years, CSA has served as a forum for county leaders to address important issues facing local constituents and develop a proactive state and federal policy agenda. The organization is led by an executive board comprised of supervisors elected by their peers and is staffed by a team of professional policy analysts.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 00:12:01 +0000
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