COEUR d'ALENE - County commissioners met with U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo Friday afternoon to advocate for permanent tax replacement and school funding.

"Ultimately we want to make them permanently authorized, but we don't have the votes," Crapo said. "So every two years we have to fight to get them re-authorized."

Crapo, R-Idaho, said the Payment In Lieu of Taxes and Secure Rural School funds are very important programs, especially in Idaho's smaller communities.

PILT funds are federal payments made to local governments to help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within their boundaries.

The payments help local governments carry out services such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.

Secure Rural School payments are federal funds given to counties which contain federal lands. SRS funds are used for infrastructure, schools and environmental restoration projects.

Commissioner Todd Tondee told the senator the county is having a hard time budgeting for ongoing programs because it cannot count on the PILT and SRS money until Congress re-authorizes the funding.

Crapo said the funding will be there as soon as Congress can find offsets in the budget to pay for the programs.

"We are having a little trouble squeezing this into the budget, but we will get it done," he said.

Crapo said he is working with other senators to find a permanent source of funding for those two programs, and they have made some progress.

He said Congress has a Land and Conservation Fund, collected from the oil and gas industry, which could possibly be used, but getting Congress to agree might prove difficult.

"Congress has a history of robbing that fund like they do with Social Security," Crapo said.

The senator also told commissioners about two other issues they should investigate. He said the federal Dodd-Frank regulations - passed in 2010 in response to the Great Recession and designed to deter shady financial practices on Wall Street - are starting to take a toll on small independent banks and credit unions.

"We predicted this," Crapo said. "The big banks are getting bigger and small community banks are getting hammered by the regulators."

Crapo said many small banks are merging to survive, and others are just melting away.

"It's a small community issue rather than an issue on Wall Street," he said, encouraging the commissioners to try and make it an issue at their state and national association of counties.

The other issue is the Department of Justice teaming up with financial regulators to launch what they are calling "Operation Choke Point."

"I have to give them credit for the name they gave the program," Crapo said. "They are literally trying to choke out certain specific businesses."

The senator said the program is focused on regulating gun dealers and payday loan companies out of business, and they are getting away with it because the general public isn't pushing back.

"These are legal businesses we are talking about," he said, adding that there are advocates pushing for even more regulation on those businesses.

"We really need to see some push back from all across the country," he said.