new land purchase

[bigtex]

I stand corrected.  Just when I think this state couldn't be any dumber...I learn of more wasteful spending named identically to the same wasteful federal program managed by DoI

How is it wasteful? Counties get money from the feds/state in return for the feds/state having land they can't tax.

How is it wasteful? Well, for starters...it’s supposedly already OUR public land.  How many government paper pushers are we the taxpayers paying to move money from one pocket to the other on the same pair of pants?  It’s a shell game, nothing more.

So counties should just suck it up? PILT is largely a conservative/republican supported program as it mainly benefits rural/poorer counties. Okanogan County gets almost $2.5 million a year from the feds, should we just say sorry it's fed land so you guys need to come up with $2.5M elsewhere?

[Bob33]

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/state-fleecing-counties-payments-in-lieu-of-taxes-frozen-since/article_6872bca4-be73-11e5-aeb0-cfc22eba9094.html

“The policy is not the issue. It’s budgetary,” Berg said. “When they’re looking to save money for education, they’ll cut anywhere.”

That has created some tension between counties and the Wildlife Department and its partners, such as The Nature Conservancy, which in many cases purchase land and deed it to the state.

Officials in Asotin and Okanogan counties have been adamant about not wanting the state to acquire any more land in their counties, and the state has agreed to a moratorium on purchases there.

[bigtex]

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/state-fleecing-counties-payments-in-lieu-of-taxes-frozen-since/article_6872bca4-be73-11e5-aeb0-cfc22eba9094.html

“The policy is not the issue. It’s budgetary,” Berg said. “When they’re looking to save money for education, they’ll cut anywhere.”

That has created some tension between counties and the Wildlife Department and its partners, such as The Nature Conservancy, which in many cases purchase land and deed it to the state.

Officials in Asotin and Okanogan counties have been adamant about not wanting the state to acquire any more land in their counties, and the state has agreed to a moratorium on purchases there.

It's been about 10 years since the WA Legislature fully funded PILT. In the past 10 years only eastern WA counties have been getting PILT and its appropriated from the legislature and not how the state law requires the actual calculation to be. WDFW in partnership with counties have asked for PILT to be revamped but the legislature declines to do so.

[Bushcraft]

I stand corrected.  Just when I think this state couldn't be any dumber...I learn of more wasteful spending named identically to the same wasteful federal program managed by DoI

How is it wasteful? Counties get money from the feds/state in return for the feds/state having land they can't tax.

How is it wasteful? Well, for starters...it’s supposedly already OUR public land.  How many government paper pushers are we the taxpayers paying to move money from one pocket to the other on the same pair of pants?  It’s a shell game, nothing more.

So counties should just suck it up? PILT is largely a conservative/republican supported program as it mainly benefits rural/poorer counties. Okanogan County gets almost $2.5 million a year from the feds, should we just say sorry it's fed land so you guys need to come up with $2.5M elsewhere?

I don’t give a rip if CINO’s and RINO’s support it. It’s absurd on principle. The whole algorithm can be reduced down to this...A small fraction of the populance is forced to pay the vast majority of the taxes that go to pay taxes on public land that the public already owns. It’s friggin’ ludicrous!

Let me ask the question again...How many government paper pushers are We the Taxpayers paying to move money from one public pocket to another public pocket on the same damn pair of public pants?

If they can’t figure it out then maybe we need to reconsider who the land actually belongs to and who should have the final say in how it’s managed.  The farther we get it away from absentee centralized federal and state government the better off it will be. I’m sick and damn tired of King and Pierce counties dictating how the rest of the state should (mis)manage local renewable resources.  In the meantime, the PILT is just another Big Government Welfare Tit that everyone lines up to suckle on.

WDFW is passing the buck on this. They lobby their butts off for administrative cost increases (don’t think they don’t!) but hardly a peep when it comes to paying something they are actually on the hook for. It’s easier to juat blame it on the legislature.

[olyguy79]

I stand corrected.  Just when I think this state couldn't be any dumber...I learn of more wasteful spending named identically to the same wasteful federal program managed by DoI

How is it wasteful? Counties get money from the feds/state in return for the feds/state having land they can't tax.

How is it wasteful? Well, for starters...it’s supposedly already OUR public land.  How many government paper pushers are we the taxpayers paying to move money from one pocket to the other on the same pair of pants?  It’s a shell game, nothing more.

So counties should just suck it up? PILT is largely a conservative/republican supported program as it mainly benefits rural/poorer counties. Okanogan County gets almost $2.5 million a year from the feds, should we just say sorry it's fed land so you guys need to come up with $2.5M elsewhere?

I don’t give a rip if CINO’s and RINO’s support it. It’s absurd on principle. The whole algorithm can be reduced down to this...A small fraction of the populance is forced to pay the vast majority of the taxes that go to pay taxes on public land that it already owns. It’s friggin’ ludicrous!

Let me ask the question again...How many government paper pushers are We the Taxpayers paying to move money from one public pocket to another public on the same damn pair of public pants?

If they can’t figure it out then maybe we need to reconsider who the land actually belongs to and who should have the final say in how it’s managed.  The farther we get it away from absentee centralized federal and state government the better off it will be. I’m sick and damn tired of King and Pierce counties dictating how the rest of the state should (mis)manage local renewable resources.  In the meantime, the PILT is just another Big Government Welfare Tit that everyone lines up to suckle on.

WDFW is passing the buck on this. They lobby their butts off for administrative cost increases (don’t think they don’t!) but hardly a peep when it comes to paying something they are actually on the hook for. It’s easier to juat blame it on the legislature.

If you take away PILT (at either the state or federal level) the counties will advocate for those public lands to be private property. That's the whole point of PILT.

Look at California, they haven't paid their version of PILT for CDFW lands for about a decade and now counties are speaking out against further land acquisitions. So essentially hunters are losing access to would-be public lands.

I'm not a big fan of government agencies giving other agencies money, but PILT is one I do support.

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[Bushcraft]

I stand corrected.  Just when I think this state couldn't be any dumber...I learn of more wasteful spending named identically to the same wasteful federal program managed by DoI

How is it wasteful? Counties get money from the feds/state in return for the feds/state having land they can't tax.

How is it wasteful? Well, for starters...it’s supposedly already OUR public land.  How many government paper pushers are we the taxpayers paying to move money from one pocket to the other on the same pair of pants?  It’s a shell game, nothing more.

So counties should just suck it up? PILT is largely a conservative/republican supported program as it mainly benefits rural/poorer counties. Okanogan County gets almost $2.5 million a year from the feds, should we just say sorry it's fed land so you guys need to come up with $2.5M elsewhere?

I don’t give a rip if CINO’s and RINO’s support it. It’s absurd on principle. The whole algorithm can be reduced down to this...A small fraction of the populance is forced to pay the vast majority of the taxes that go to pay taxes on public land that it already owns. It’s friggin’ ludicrous!

Let me ask the question again...How many government paper pushers are We the Taxpayers paying to move money from one public pocket to another public on the same damn pair of public pants?

If they can’t figure it out then maybe we need to reconsider who the land actually belongs to and who should have the final say in how it’s managed.  The farther we get it away from absentee centralized federal and state government the better off it will be. I’m sick and damn tired of King and Pierce counties dictating how the rest of the state should (mis)manage local renewable resources.  In the meantime, the PILT is just another Big Government Welfare Tit that everyone lines up to suckle on.

WDFW is passing the buck on this. They lobby their butts off for administrative cost increases (don’t think they don’t!) but hardly a peep when it comes to paying something they are actually on the hook for. It’s easier to juat blame it on the legislature.

If you take away PILT (at either the state or federal level) the counties will advocate for those public lands to be private property. That's the whole point of PILT.

Look at California, they haven't paid their version of PILT for CDFW lands for about a decade and now counties are speaking out against further land acquisitions. So essentially hunters are losing access to would-be public lands.

I'm not a big fan of government agencies giving other agencies money, but PILT is one I do support.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Uh, oh....there’s the private sector boogeyman again! 

How do you know counties would push for that? Maybe they’d be better stewards of the public lands within their borders if they had more local oversight of those land holdings. I am 100% certain that the folks in Stevens county know more about what is going on in their county than a handful of PowerPoint presenters in Olympia, but right now the county's hands are tied.

Question: If you had the choice, would you rather:

• Pay whatever it is you pay now in combined taxes and fees to a non-accountable hierarchy of pass-the-buck government agencies that don’t effectively manage the renewable resources on those lands....just so you can walk around on “your public land” and not see huntable populations of game that should otherwise be there?
• Or, would you rather pay the same amount (or less!) to a county that hires a local private company (via a fully transparent bidding process) to manage that land for the maximum effective sustainable harvest of ALL renewable resources on those public lands...and have a much higher likelihood of coming home with a buck, bull, pheasants, ducks or whatever?
• Or, pay the exact same amount as above with the same positive outcome, but to a private property owner who still has to pay property taxes to the county on those landholdings?

My guess is that you’d (correctly) opt for #2 or #3.