PILT Payments & Historical Payments

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Below is a link containing an Excel spreadsheet with the analysis of the Payment of Lieu of Taxes that were issued by the Bureau of Land Management.

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IMPORTANT NOTE:  In order to receive PILT Payments a county MUST be registered with Central Contracting Information (CCR).  If your county did not receive an ACH payment, please go to the BLM PILT website for more information: http://www.doi.gov/pilt/  Additional information about the PILT program is also available on that website.

The Federal Fiscal Year 2011 payments to Montana Counties was up $1,203,931 or 5.12%, due to the CPI increase (They use a different CPI measurement than is used for CPI-COLA), changes in Entitlement Lands payment acres and changes in Prior Year Payments for other federal land payments received by counties such as Federal Mineral Royalty, Federal Forest Payment and Refuge Revenue Sharing payments.  The largest dollar increase was in Missoula County at $312,999 (28.99%) , followed by Flathead at $241,485 (12.81%) and Ravalli at $163,965 (10.19%).  Counties with the greatest reductions were Blaine at $203,642 (-30.04%), Musselshell at $168,986 (-85.42%) and Valley at $113,036 (12.37%). Other counties seeing significant percentage changes were Hill (+86.00%), Wheatland (+47.49% and Toole (+37.69%)

The overall change in acres was an increase of 134,375 with 88,968 being in Missoula County.

On a per-acre basis, Petroleum and Garfield Counties continue to receive the lowest per acre payment at $0.21 and $0.22 respectively due to population caps in the PILT formula while  Custer and Yellowstone received $2.34 and $2.29 per acre.

On October 3, 2008, Congress enacted the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-343) which authorized counties to receive their full PILT entitlement from 2008 through 2012. The amount authorized for the program in FY 2011 was $375.6 million. This amount is partitioned into $375.2 million for payments to counties and other local governments and $400,000 to BLM for expenses to administer the program.

BLM computes payments authorized under section 6902 of the Act using the greater of the following two alternatives:

(A) $2.42 (in fiscal year 2011) times the number of acres of qualified Federal land in the county (as defined above), reduced by the amount of funds received by the county in the prior fiscal year under certain other Federal land receipt sharing programs such as the twenty-five percent timber program or the mineral leasing program

-or-

(B) Thirty-three cents (in fiscal year 2011) times the number of acres of qualified Federal land in the county, with no deduction for prior-year payments.

Both alternatives explained above are subject to a population ceiling limitation computed by multiplying the county population times a corresponding dollar value (adjusted annually for inflation) contained in the Act.

Also a reminder that next year will be the FINAL payment under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-343) that authorized full funding for the PILT program from 2008 through 2012. Absent a Congressional Re-authorization, the level of PILT funding will revert to an annual appropriation by Congress.

If you have any questions, please contact Harold Blattie, Executive Director, Montana Association of Counties:

(406) 449-4360 Office  |  (406) 442-5238 Fax  |  hblattie@mtcounties.org