County Receives $2.34 Per Acre For Federal Land
County Receives $2.34 Per Acre For Federal Land
By David Howell
Editor
WATER VALLEY – Yalobusha County will receive $171,684 in federal funds this year as part of the annual payment from the federal government to local governments to help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal land. Yalobusha County’s payment is the second largest out of 73 counties in the state receiving the 2016 Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT), trailing only behind Lafayette County’s $220,960 payment.
Annual PILT payments are made for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service. Federal water projects and some military payments are also considered in PILT payment evaluations.
In Yalobusha, the payment stems from a total of 76,828 acres of federal land that includes U.S. Corps of Engineers owned property at Enid and Grenada lakes and 20,776 acres included in the Holly Springs National Forest in the county. That means the county receives just over $2.23 per acre.
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the distribution of 2016 PILT payments in late June, noting that this year’s $1,988,191 award to Mississippi is $154,248 more than the 2015 payment. In Yalobusha County, the payment is up $2,800 from the 2015 payment of $168,884.
The formula used to compute the payments is contained in the PILT Act and is based on population, receipt sharing payments, and the amount of Federal land within an affected county. PILT payments are in addition to other Federal revenues (such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing, and timber harvesting) the Federal Government transfers to the states. The DOI has distributed more than $7.5 billion dollars in PILT payments to states (except Rhode Island), the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands since these payments began in 1977.
