By Valliant Corley

Pilot staff writer

GOLD BEACH – Curry County supervisors are keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that the U.S. House's measure for a four-year extension of the county timber payments program is approved this month.

"We haven't heard anything new," Commission Chair Marlyn Schafer said. "We were hoping they would get it completed and onto a bill by Thanksgiving."

The bill passed out of committee in the House was authored by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., whose district includes Curry County.

DeFazio's bill would also increase funding for rural areas through the Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, which is designed to make up for taxes that counties lose out on as a result of having federal lands inside their borders.

Legislators currently fund about two-thirds of the amount mandated by a federal formula. The bill would require full funding of the program by 2010.

"Leadership says it will be addressed by this Congress," Schafer said. "Whether it gets on a bill that will not get vetoed is another question. The president has said he will not veto our bill, but if it gets attached to something else, who knows?"

She said all of Oregon's Congressional delegation is working hard on the measure.

"There's a lot of work being done, but the final action is out of our control," Schafer said.

Schafer said that when the bill went into the conference committee, Title II and Title III funding was put back into the bill.

"Title II money is for the Forest Service to fund projects in the forests," she said. "Title II comes to us for projects to deal with forests."

She said those funds are much more limited than they have been in the past.

"Probably just for search and rescue," Schafer said. "It will tighten up how we can use that Title III money."

She said the measure would be a 10 percent reduction each year.

"The first year, we would get exactly what we got last year," Schafer said. "Then there would be a 10 percent reduction each of the next three years."

That would extend funding to Curry County and each of the other 17 Oregon O&C counties for four years.

"If we don't have BLM operating by then, we're still going to be back in hot water," Schafer said.

The Bureau of Land Management is taking comments on its proposal to harvest timber until Dec. 10. If its Alternative two is finally approved, Curry County could get most of what it has been getting under the congressional stop gap funding in the future.

Schafer said the measure being considered by Congress would start in Fiscal Year 2008-09.

"We won't be able to spend all the money," she said, if Congress gets the proposal passed. "We will have to put a minimum. We'll have to save for inflation and whatever to be able to operate those four years."

Meanwhile, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., reported that he recently participated in a meeting with former Congressman Jim Nussle of Iowa who is now the director at the Office of Management and Budget.

Walden says he strongly advocated for the county payments legislation and reiterated the emergency situation which exists in counties and rural schools across the nation. 

He also expressed the need to increase the Forest Service budgets for fuels reduction and timber harvest projects.

Walden's staff said the meeting was very positive and Nussle assured him that he would work closely with him as the process of county payments reauthorization and efforts to increase PILT funding moves forward.