Department of Interior distributes county payments

The U.S. Department of Interior will pay $451.6 million to 1,900 local governments across the country under its 2016 Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program.

The payments are intended to compensate counties that host tax-exempt public lands for national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands and waters and do not collect property taxes for them.

The payments represent the largest amount ever allocated under the PILT program. For fiscal year 2016, Idaho’s share of the payments will be $29.3 million and Wyoming $28.1 million. Wyoming hosts a total of 29,836,570 acres of federal public land. Idaho holds 32,619,640 acres of public land.

You can find out how much your county will receive here

Congress appropriated $451.6 million for payments to counties for the 2016 program. The President’s fiscal year 2017 budget proposes to return the PILT program to mandatory funding at $480 million annually, which would ensure funding stability for the program and local communities year after year.