Washington counties receiving $27.1M in federal funds

Every county in Washington will soon get its yearly injection of funds from the feds in exchange for federally-owned land within their borders. For some, this dollar amount will be as low as zero; for others, it will be in the millions. In Washington, that number totals $27.1 million for this year.

Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or PILT funds, are “federal payments to local governments to help offset losses in property taxes due to the existence of nontaxable Federal lands within their boundaries” and are administered by the Department of the Interior.

For the 2023 fiscal year, the number totals $578.8 million nationwide and is disbursed by county.

“PILT payments help local governments carry out vital services, such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget Joan Mooney in a news release accompanying the announcement. “We are grateful for our ongoing partnerships with local jurisdictions across the country who help the Interior Department fulfill our mission on behalf of the American public.”

Enshrined in Title 31, Subtitle 5, Chapter 69 of the United States Code, the DOI has disbursed over $11.3 billion in PILT payments to 49 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands since payments began in 1977.

Rhode Island is the lone exception, having a small enough ratio of federal land within its borders to not qualify under the formula used to calculate payouts.

That formula is based on “population, revenue-sharing payments, and the amount of Federal land within an affected county,” according to the DOI website.

The weight of those various factors can be seen in the funds disbursed.

Chelan and Okanogan counties only have 81,060 and 42,398 residents, respectively, yet receive a more sizable share of the federal monies due to the outsized federal acreage within their borders.

Meanwhile, King and Pierce counties, despite having relatively low acreages of federal land at 358,464 and 338,079, respectively, get more due to their outsized populations.

Ranked by dollar amount, the top five counties in the state are as follows:

County - Dollar Amount - Federal Acres

Chelan - $3,648,663 - 1,486,892 acres

Okanogan - $3,142,410 - 1,564,703 acres

Whatcom - $2,254,709 - 846,642 acres

Jefferson - $1,769,021 - 705,343 acres

Snohomish - $1,663,329 - 631,793 acres

And dollars received ranked by population:

County - Dollar Amount - Population

King - $1,017,602 - 2,371,204 people

Pierce - $950,933 - 958,900 people

Snohomish - $1,663,329 - 862,343 people

Spokane - $6,482 - 559,775 people

Clark - $2,535 - 526,696 people