Federal Land Payment Increases

YALOBUSHA – Yalobusha County will receive $271,586 this year through the federal Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, an increase of $34,457, or about 14.5 percent, from last year’s payment of $237,129.

The annual payments are made by the U.S. Department of the Interior to help compensate counties for property tax revenue they cannot collect on federally owned land. The funds may be used for any governmental purpose, including road maintenance, law enforcement, fire protection and other public services.

Yalobusha County contains 76,793 acres of federally owned entitlement land, including 55,796 acres managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Enid and Grenada lakes and 20,916 acres in the Holly Springs National Forest. Those federal holdings make Yalobusha one of Mississippi’s largest recipients of PILT funding, according to the U.S. Department of Interior.

The higher payment was driven primarily by changes in the federal payment formula, including lower deductions for certain federal revenue-sharing programs used in calculating PILT payments.

Mississippi counties will receive a combined $5.16 million through the program this year, compared with $3.02 million last year, an increase of about 70.7 percent. Nationwide, the Department of the Interior distributed more than $733 million in PILT funding to more than 1,900 local governments containing qualifying federal lands.

Yalobusha County ranked fourth in Mississippi this year in total PILT funding. The formula is based on the number of federal acreage in each county.. Perry County received the state’s largest payment at $481,540, followed by Lafayette County at $364,176, Franklin County at $287,269 and Wayne County at $266,335.