When Congress approved its 2015 government funding bill earlier this month, a bleak financial situation for Skamania County got worse.
Federal lawmakers failed to renew a program that each year sends millions of dollars to timber-dependent counties. The Secure Rural Schools program was created in 2000 as a way to replace some of the revenue those counties once collected from tax-generating timber harvests before their sharp decline.
For now, many counties in Washington and Oregon don’t know if they’ll have that money next year. Few will be harder hit than Skamania County.
“It’s not good,” said Skamania County Commissioner Chris Brong. “It’s going to be really dire here.”
The so-called “timber payments” program would have given about $1.5 million to the county in 2015 — a sizeable chunk of its $9.8 million general operating budget. The budget Skamania County commissioners just adopted assumes the timber payments will be included, Brong said.
In a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee last week, Brong outlined some of the impacts that could result from the lost funding. The county could lose dozens of positions affecting numerous departments, he said. Layoff notices could start as soon as Jan. 5, according to the letter, which was also sent to congressional representatives and other officials.
“We will have limited capacity to respond to public requests and provide non-discretionary, state required services,” the letter read. “Most non-discretionary ‘community’ services will be eliminated.”
The Stevenson-Carson School District also receives money from the timber payments program, according to the letter.
It’s possible that Congress could retroactively renew the Secure Rural Schools program when it returns in January. U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who has supported the program, has indicated that House leadership pledged to make it a priority next month. The Camas Republican said failure to renew it this month leaves rural counties in a “crisis situation.”
“I will not cease in my efforts to restore this funding so that schools in Skamania County, Lewis County, and throughout rural Washington can keep operating,” Herrera Beutler said in a statement released when the federal funding bill was approved.
Skamania County is no stranger to financial uncertainty. County commissioners earlier this year declared a state of emergency, decrying what they described as mismanagement of federal forestland that has hamstrung the county’s operations and created extreme fire danger. County leaders have long called for an increase to revenue-generating timber harvests on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which used to be one of the biggest timber producers in the Northwest.
Eighty percent of the county is federally owned — most of that by the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the 1.3 million-acre Gifford Pinchot forest. Another 8 percent is owned by the state. And 10 percent of Skamania County is designated as private timberland, which generates significant tax revenue only when harvested.
That leaves only 2 percent of the county in private residential or commercial use, which generates property taxes.
“The percentages limit what we can generate ourselves on private land,” Brong said.
Congress is scheduled to reconvene Jan. 6.
