PILT protected from elimination

Koochiching County commissioners and other officials learned Tuesday that bills that would change management of the state’s school trust lands would also eliminate the $500,000 of payment in lieu of taxes Koochiching County annually receives.

Koochiching has 854,000 acres of school trust land on which the county receives the payments, known as PILT.

On Thursday morning, Sen. Tom Bakk told The Journal that he had just found out that both bills at the Legislature have been amended to maintain the payments. Bakk, the Senate minority leader, will represent Borderland, if reelected in November, when seated in January.

The news of the amendments that would allow for the continuance of PILT came as a relief to Koochiching County Commissioner Wade Pavleck.

“It sounds like they were able to take care of it,” Pavleck told The Journal Thursday.

The loss of $500,000 annually would be devastating to the county, he said.

However, Pavleck said he’s cautiously optimistic because PILT is vulnerable as legislators look for money to use elsewhere.

“We have one of the largest acreages (of school trust lands) in the state and the Legislature is becoming more dominated by central and southern Minnesota interests, who are not concerned about PILT,” Pavleck said.

Pavleck said he’s concerned abut future efforts to eliminate PILT to counties with school trust lands.

“This takes care of it for this year, but we will see what happens in the next session,” he said. “This will be an ongoing issue as we look to the future.”

And, he noted, the payments have not kept up with valuation “and that’s a whole other issue.”

Commissioner Mike Hanson left a message Thursday at The Journal saying he was at the Capitol and “talking PILT today.”

Meanwhile, the legislators that represent Borderland now — Sen. Tom Saxhaug and Rep. Tom Anzelc — and the two that could represent the area after January — Bakk and Rep. David Dill — have pledged to maintain PILT.

“In no way any of us would support any legislation or amendment in committee or on the floor that does anything to PILT,” said Anzelc.

Bakk, an author of the House bill, said he’s been at the table for discussions and said he would make sure PILT is not eliminated.

“I am a strong advocate of supporting public ownership of lands that we all benefit from, but it shouldn’t fall to the local taxpayers to carry the whole burden.”

Bakk noted that he received an award from the Rural Counties Association in the past naming him “the protector of PILT.”

Both Bakk and Dill said they didn’t believe the bills would ever get signed into law.

Dill, before he knew that the elimination of PILT had been amended out of the bills, said PILT was not intended to be eliminated through the bills.

“If that bill ever becomes a reality we would have to put an amendment on the bill to continue PILT,” he said.

“I will not stand still and watch a bill progress that takes any PILT when we put nothing but sweat equity in to retain it during these tough economic times,” he said. “PILT is a core element of having public lands... (Elimination of PILT) is not going to happen and I am not sure that bill will happen.”

Dill said the northern lawmakers “will fall on our swords for PILT.”

DNR management

Meanwhile, Dill said the issue in switching management of the school trust lands from the Department of Natural Resources to a panel is based on the DNR’s access of school trust money as the agency’s budget shrinks.

“The problem is not how the land is managed,” he said. “The problem is every time a mosquito passes gas they send out biologists to find out why it did and that is taken out of the school trust.”

Dill said another trustee of the school trust fund is needed “but not a whole other layer of government.”

Bakk said the school trust issue is about conflicting management objectives. He explained that some lands in the school trust are being managed under designations that do not allow recreational use, logging or mining, thereby are not generating money for the trust.

“Many have expressed concern about that — that those lands that aren’t benefiting the trust should be bought out of trust status and the revenue of the sale put into the trust... The bill is intended to get the DNR and governor’s attention and I don’t think the bill will ever get signed into law.”

Anzelc said he’s not interested in creating another bureaucracy with a panel managing the school trust lands.

“It’s a lot more controversial, more difficult than simply getting more money from the kids off (school trust lands),” he said. “Everybody supports more money for schools but I believe we need to do it the old fashioned way, by increasing the per pupil formula and not dinking around with things like this.”