By Stephen Smoot
Last week, the United States Senate reauthorized the Secure Rural Schools Act, which will come as a minor, but welcome, boost to many area county school budgets. The bill landed on the desk of President Donald Trump on Dec 15.
The Secure Rural Schools Act provides funding resources to counties that host National Forest lands. They help to backfill the tax revenues that those lands might otherwise provide. That funding’s authorization expired in 2023, but continued to come to local governments through 2024.
Throughout 2024, the bill stayed on the backburner and did not receive passage in time.
The reauthorization bill came back before the United States Senate last spring. On June 18, it passed with a voice vote and went to the House of Representatives. Summertime in the United States Congress involves a number of weeks where Senators and Representatives hold meetings back home, tour facilities, and meet with constituents. Not a lot of major business transpires, so the House planned to vote on the bill in September.
September, however, brought the government shutdown. At the time, Congressman Riley Moore shared that the bill could not come up for discussion and a vote until after Congress leapt over that hurdle. After a historically long process, the government finally reopened and the House worked on the backlog.
On December 9 came debates and different moves, but it passed the House 399 to five. Six days later, the bill went to President Trump to receive his signature. The program is authorized through 2027 and affected districts will receive any retroactive payments that would have come without the delay in passage.
Funding from this act can change from year to year, due to a formula which incorporates aspects such as average personal income in the county. Should that income go up, the funding received by the county school system could drop.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, whose United States Forest Service administers the National Forests, should the act have not reauthorized, a 1908 law would come back into force. The Act of May 23, 1908 specified a yearly sum paid “25 percent of all amounts received for the applicable fiscal year and each of the preceding six fiscal years from each national forest” to “the State or Territory in which said reserve is situated.”
This was raised from 10 percent payments passed two years prior.
The statute specified that funds go “for the benefit of the public schools and roads of the counties containing the National Forests.” At that point, much of the revenue from the National Forests came from grazing permits and timber extraction. The last time that occurred was 2016.
