Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) has provided $31,196,044 under the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program for rural counties in Nevada for fiscal Year 2023.
“I’ve always championed this program to support rural Nevada counties pay their firefighters and police officers, repair aging infrastructure, and fund education and conservation projects,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “I’m glad to see even more funding headed to Nevada this year, and I’ll continue to protect this program and will always advocate for our rural counties to receive the resources they need.”
“With the majority of Nevada’s land under federal management, it’s critical that communities in our state receive PILT payments to provide essential services, including paying law enforcement and first responders,” said Senator Rosen. “I’m glad to see that dozens of local governments in Nevada will receive over $31 million through PILT this year, and I will fight to ensure rural communities in Nevada continue to receive their fair share of funding.”
PILT payments are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within those governments’ boundaries. PILT payments support local governments in carrying out such vital services as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations. The payments are made annually for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (all agencies of the Department of the Interior), the U.S. Forest Service (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and for federal water projects and some military installations. A full breakdown of FY2023 PILT payments by county is available here.
Senators Cortez Masto and Rosen have been champions of the PILT program, and they have repeatedly called for a long-term solution to secure the PILT program for the future. Both Senators are also cosponsors of the Small County PILT Parity Act, legislation that would modify the PILT formula so that counties with populations under 5,000 would receive increased PILT payments.
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