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NEWPORT – The Secure Rural Schools Program is a program designed to help rural counties that have non-taxable government land. Pend Oreille County received $688,964 and Bonner County received $709,655 in funds to be used for roads and schools this year.
Bonner County has 469,985 acres of national forest land. Pend Oreille County has 526,716 acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service website.
Pend Oreille County received a little more than last year’s $581,351, according to county treasurer Nicole Dice.
Of the county’s $688,964, Dice said the county road department will get $334,482, the Newport School District will receive $229,136, the Cusick School District will receive $56,257 and the Selkirk School District will get $49,088.
West Bonner County School District interim superintendent Joe Kren said the district received money for an intercom system and a video intercom system installed at the front entrance of both buildings.
Priest River Elementary will get $96,048 to Joe Kren. Priest River Lamanna High School will get $13,141.
“The next steps will be to move forward with the solicitation of bids for the project following a state procurement requirements and school board policy,” Kren said. “Unfortunately grant proposals were denied at the other three school buildings.”
Each state’s Secure Rural School payment amount is determined by various factors established in the law, including the number of counties that elect to share in a state’s payment. Payments to states are distributed after the Forest Service collects revenue to accommodate those counties electing to continue participation in revenue sharing rather than the Secure Rural School payment, according to the Forest Service website.
According to Kevin Reichert of Idaho Education News, Idaho’s share of the money is decreasing this year, however, by about 7%. That is evidently a result of the feds’ formula. When per-capita income increases, as was the case across much of the state, the feds payments decrease, Reichert wrote in an April 25 IdahoEdNews. org story.
Secure Rural Schools remains on tenuous footing, nearly a quarter century after its creation. And as a result, educators say the federal program doesn’t eliminate the need for local, voter-approved school taxes.
Launched in 2000 — and co-authored by then Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho — Secure Rural Schools was designed to offset the declining revenues from federal timber sales. The name is a bit of a misnomer, since 70% of the money goes to counties for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.
The schools’ money goes to districts that have been carved out amidst the conifers that cover much of central and North Idaho and Eastern Washington.
The payments are based on federal forest acreage within a school district, and the 2022-23 figures vary widely. Twenty-seven districts didn’t get a dime.
