Montana’s congressional delegation is pushing for legislation to reauthorize the federal Secure Rural Schools funding program that provides about $1.6 million annually for Flathead County roads and schools.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., announced Tuesday he is introducing bipartisan legislation to fully fund both Secure Rural Schools and Payments in Lieu of Taxes funding.

His bill would reauthorize Secure Rural Schools payments for three years at the level provided in 2011, “eliminating the volatility that county budgets face during the annual budget process,” Tester said in a press release.

Last week Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., asked U.S. House and Senate leaders to move swiftly to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools funding. In a letter to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, Daines and Zinke pushed for a short-term extension of the funding.

Daines, who was in the Flathead Valley on Tuesday for a forest management roundtable, told the Inter Lake that short-term funding for Secure Rural Schools needs to be tied to reform that benefits the timber industry.

“If we had a more robust timber industry, we wouldn’t need SRS,” Daines said, adding that Montanans “need to be wary of increasing dependence on the federal government.”

Daines and Zinke stated in their letter that it is “essential that the federal government honor its commitment to sufficiently compensate counties with federally held lands.”

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was enacted in 2000 as a way to compensate timber communities for revenue lost because of reduced timber harvests on federal lands.

Western Montana counties had for decades received funding from U.S. Forest Service timber harvests that declined sharply starting in the late 1980s. Lawmakers determined that school and county funding shouldn’t be dependent on federal timber.

Last year Flathead County received just over $1.6 million in Secure Rural Schools funding. Of that, $532,857 went to local schools and $1,067,315 was used to improve county roads.

The loss of Secure Rural Schools funding will be much greater for Lincoln County, which received about $4.8 million last year. Sanders County got about $2.2 million.

In September 2013 the U.S. Senate passed legislation to extend Secure Rural Schools funding for an additional year. The 113th Congress, however, failed to reauthorize the act, which expired in September 2014.

Montana counties will lose roughly $21 million if the funding isn’t reauthorized.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock also has weighed in on the Secure Rural Schools funding. He sent a letter last week to Montana’s congressional delegation encouraging them to work together to reauthorize funding.

“Many county roads will lose the necessary funding for maintenance and many schools will be suffering huge budget shortfalls,” Bullock said in his letter.

Tester’s bill also would establish permanent, full funding of Payment in Lieu of Taxes, a program that compensates local governments with federal lands that are not taxable. Congress provided nearly full funding of $405 million for the current fiscal year, but future funding is not guaranteed.

Flathead County received $2.4 million in June 2014 from Payments In Lieu of Taxes. The county has been setting aside its allocation to use in a number of county building projects such as the renovation of the historic jail building next to the courthouse and the South Campus Building to be constructed this year.

Montana’s slice of the Payments in Lieu pie was $28.8 million last year, of which Flathead’s allocation was the largest. Other counties with sizable amounts of federal land included Ravalli County, which received $2.1 million; and Lewis and Clark County, at $2.3 million.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.