National Forest

[Bear Heart]

Where does funding for national forest come from?  How can states charge for national forest usage?  Who gets the money from timber sales?

[LKH]

At least part of the timber sales money goes to schools in the affected counties.  I was not aware of any state charging for national forest usage.  Where'd that come from?  

National forest funding comes from the same place all our funding has come from in the last 20 years.  We borrow it.

[d. ward]

BH at one time some of the money from the timber sales went to our schools here.I'am not certin of how much..bd

[Bear Heart]

I know Mt Baker National Forest requires you to buy a pass.  I don't know who actually gets the money.

[vermonster13]

National Forest is Federal. State Forest is State.

[Ray_G]

Re: question #3

The Idaho county that I used to live in had approx. 70% government managed land.  The timber sale monies returned to the county were 25% and used for schools and roads.  I don't remember the ratio of split between the two.  This is used to offset the loss of property tax for schools and road repairs due to heavy equipment.

With the loss of timber sales that we have seen in the last fifteen years, PILT was invented by Congress.  (Payment in lieu of Timber or maybe Taxes).  It is not as much money as timber sales and may be expired by now.

By the way, we still conducted Hunter Ed. in the schools, after hours and they still do.  With all that gov't. land, we had a lot of hunters come into the region besides the residents who ranched, logged and lived there.

Ray

[Steve H.]

I work for Smokey but don't know squat about timber. Salable minerals which includes rock, sand & gravel, etc. funds go straight to the US Treasury and I thought that is where timber money went too.  I do know that SOME recreation items like campground fees get returned to the local district.