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Land base limits hit home
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| H&N photo by Todd E. Swenson A view looking south in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday. |
By DD BIXBY
H&N Staff Writer
If you’re a resident of Lake County you pay about $235 in taxes. But if you live in Multnomah County, your taxes can be counted in pennies, according to Lake County Commissioner Brad Winters.
Rural counties across the Northwest are beginning to grapple with the loss of federal timber payments which supported many county services, especially schools and roads. Adding to the crunch: Much of the land base is publicly owned.
More than 50 percent of Modoc, Siskiyou, Klamath and Lake counties is managed by the state or federal government.
In Lake County, the most sparsely populated of the four counties, 7,200 residents carry the tax burden for an area of more than 8,200 square miles — 78 percent of which is publicly owned.
To illustrate the point, Winters used a list of the taxes per person for all counties in Oregon based on a formula of population and assessed value for the total area. In Lake County, the formula estimated total taxes per person at $235, he said.
As a comparison, Winters noted that Multnomah County, with a size of 465 square miles and a population of 677,850, the tax per person was 21 cents. Multnomah is Oregon’s smallest county geographically, and, with Portland, has 20 percent of the state’s population.
“Our rate per person seems to be quite high compared to areas with bigger populations,” he said.
Klamath County
In Klamath County, public lands make up 55 percent of the county and include 227 square miles at Crater Lake National Park, Bureau of Land Management lands, State of Oregon parks and wildlife areas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuges and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 44 percent, or 2,700 square miles, of Klamath County.
Klamath County Commissioner John Elliott said the county expects to get $382,300 from shared timber receipts from those federal forest harvests — a drop in the bucket compared to the $15 million that used to come in from the Secure Rural Schools Act, which is not expected to be renewed.
For those public lands, which aren’t taxed the same as the 2,764 square miles of private land, the county receives a 19 cents per acre payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT, which is estimated to come in at about $410,000 for the next fiscal year, Elliott said.
In California
South of the state line, Siskiyou and Modoc counties are in a similar position. More than 70 percent of the 4,203 square miles in Modoc County is under public control.
In Siskiyou County, 60 percent of the land of is managed by various agencies, such as the USDA, the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game.
County officials said if public lands were taxed, even at the lowest tax rates or at levels comparable to farmland, the counties would receive significantly more for schools, special districts and county operations.
Wayne Hammar, Siskiyou County tax collector and treasurer, said that while Siskiyou County is supposed to receive a PILT for its federal land, that money, along with the payment of timber receipts, gets entwined in government bureaucracy and doesn’t always make it to the county.
What the county budgets for and hopes to get is $720,000 for 2008-09, Hammar said.
Both Hammar and Winters said different logging management would go a long way toward securing funding lost through a reduced tax base and the loss of the Secure Rural Schools Act.
“If we could control the logging in our own areas, it would allow us to close some gaps up (in funding of county services),” Hammar said.
Winters echoed Hammar, saying the county is still very timber dependent and is still adjusting to the loss of four sawmills and many timber jobs.
“We’re moving forward with a positive attitude and building the community back as best as we can,” he said.
Public lands also have benefits for region
Though publicly owned lands often mean a loss in tax base and revenue for local operations, they also have benefits.
Greg Austin, deputy project leader of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has several mutual aid agreements with the state forestry departments of Oregon and California and rural volunteer fire departments in Keno, Tulelake and Alturas, to help put out wildfires.
There’s a similar law enforcement agreement with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, he said.
Dawnn Brown of Travel Klamath said outdoors recreation and campgrounds on public lands draw visitors.
Between Crater Lake National Park and Collier Memorial State Park, almost 1 million tourists will come through the area, she said.
Austin said the Lava Beds National Monument and bird watching opportunities in the refuge and wildlife areas draw plenty of tourist traffic as well.
Klamath County Treasurer Mike Long said the county collected and distributed more than $1.5 million from room taxes paid by visitors. Only 30 percent is allowed to go to county operations, with much of it going back into tourism. The region’s cities, the fairgrounds and the museums also get a share of the tax.
Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges also play a role in the agriculture industry.
More than 20,000 acres on the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake refuges are lease lands, which farmers bid on to farm. About 5 to 10 percent of those acres are under water each year as part of the flood fallow program, Austin said.
The refuges also have cooperative farming lands and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Areas, where farmers grow organic crops. A portion is left for wildlife.
— DD Bixby
Rural counties across the Northwest are beginning to grapple with the loss of federal timber payments which supported many county services, especially schools and roads. Adding to the crunch: Much of the land base is publicly owned.
More than 50 percent of Modoc, Siskiyou, Klamath and Lake counties is managed by the state or federal government.
In Lake County, the most sparsely populated of the four counties, 7,200 residents carry the tax burden for an area of more than 8,200 square miles — 78 percent of which is publicly owned.
To illustrate the point, Winters used a list of the taxes per person for all counties in Oregon based on a formula of population and assessed value for the total area. In Lake County, the formula estimated total taxes per person at $235, he said.
As a comparison, Winters noted that Multnomah County, with a size of 465 square miles and a population of 677,850, the tax per person was 21 cents. Multnomah is Oregon’s smallest county geographically, and, with Portland, has 20 percent of the state’s population.
“Our rate per person seems to be quite high compared to areas with bigger populations,” he said.
Klamath County
In Klamath County, public lands make up 55 percent of the county and include 227 square miles at Crater Lake National Park, Bureau of Land Management lands, State of Oregon parks and wildlife areas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuges and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 44 percent, or 2,700 square miles, of Klamath County.
Klamath County Commissioner John Elliott said the county expects to get $382,300 from shared timber receipts from those federal forest harvests — a drop in the bucket compared to the $15 million that used to come in from the Secure Rural Schools Act, which is not expected to be renewed.
For those public lands, which aren’t taxed the same as the 2,764 square miles of private land, the county receives a 19 cents per acre payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT, which is estimated to come in at about $410,000 for the next fiscal year, Elliott said.
In California
South of the state line, Siskiyou and Modoc counties are in a similar position. More than 70 percent of the 4,203 square miles in Modoc County is under public control.
In Siskiyou County, 60 percent of the land of is managed by various agencies, such as the USDA, the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game.
County officials said if public lands were taxed, even at the lowest tax rates or at levels comparable to farmland, the counties would receive significantly more for schools, special districts and county operations.
Wayne Hammar, Siskiyou County tax collector and treasurer, said that while Siskiyou County is supposed to receive a PILT for its federal land, that money, along with the payment of timber receipts, gets entwined in government bureaucracy and doesn’t always make it to the county.
What the county budgets for and hopes to get is $720,000 for 2008-09, Hammar said.
Both Hammar and Winters said different logging management would go a long way toward securing funding lost through a reduced tax base and the loss of the Secure Rural Schools Act.
“If we could control the logging in our own areas, it would allow us to close some gaps up (in funding of county services),” Hammar said.
Winters echoed Hammar, saying the county is still very timber dependent and is still adjusting to the loss of four sawmills and many timber jobs.
“We’re moving forward with a positive attitude and building the community back as best as we can,” he said.
Public lands also have benefits for region
Though publicly owned lands often mean a loss in tax base and revenue for local operations, they also have benefits.
Greg Austin, deputy project leader of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has several mutual aid agreements with the state forestry departments of Oregon and California and rural volunteer fire departments in Keno, Tulelake and Alturas, to help put out wildfires.
There’s a similar law enforcement agreement with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, he said.
Dawnn Brown of Travel Klamath said outdoors recreation and campgrounds on public lands draw visitors.
Between Crater Lake National Park and Collier Memorial State Park, almost 1 million tourists will come through the area, she said.
Austin said the Lava Beds National Monument and bird watching opportunities in the refuge and wildlife areas draw plenty of tourist traffic as well.
Klamath County Treasurer Mike Long said the county collected and distributed more than $1.5 million from room taxes paid by visitors. Only 30 percent is allowed to go to county operations, with much of it going back into tourism. The region’s cities, the fairgrounds and the museums also get a share of the tax.
Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges also play a role in the agriculture industry.
More than 20,000 acres on the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake refuges are lease lands, which farmers bid on to farm. About 5 to 10 percent of those acres are under water each year as part of the flood fallow program, Austin said.
The refuges also have cooperative farming lands and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Areas, where farmers grow organic crops. A portion is left for wildlife.
— DD Bixby
Reader Comments
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Jennifer wrote on Jun 6, 2008 11:43 AM:
" Keep in mind that the County doesn't have schools or maintain roads within the state or federal lands, so the tax figures Mr. Winters uses of people per acre are a bit misleading. What would be interesting is a comparison of actual taxes paid per person to city/county government in Multnomah County vs. our local area. "
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charley wrote on Jun 6, 2008 9:35 PM: