02/15/06 Rural schools funding concerns

It was six years ago that U.S. Senators Larry Craig of Idaho and Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. Craig says the purpose of the Act was to off-set declining sales from federal timber lands, and to help support rural entities in a time of transition. CRAIG: Craig-Wyden was never viewed at any time as a permanent on-going mechanism. It was to replace the loss of timber and timber receipts at a time when the local communities and the region were to grow and develop new economies to fund themselves. But then again, Craig is among many within the Northwest Congressional delegation to receive a nice surprise from the Bush Administration's proposed 2007 Fiscal Year budget. The budget contains a proposed extension of the Secure Rural Schools Act. But there is concern. Explaining why there is worry among Northwest lawmakers and communities is U.S.D.A. Undersecretary Mark Rey. REY: The combination of the guaranteed payment and timber receipts will provide the countries with on the average about half of what they enjoyed under the 2000 legislation each year. It has to do with the President's push to reduce federal spending, and finding where to cut. But Wyden says the value of the program is much more than the dollars. WYDEN: I'm especially concerned that this program, which for the first time, has brought together timber interests and environmentalists and the counties & a group that can now collaborate on thinning and fire reduction, biofuels, and wetlands & will once again see that the federal government doesn't care about collaboration. But Craig says one has to keep in mind that it isn't just schools that are being funded through the Act. Road improvements are among the list of items supported by the Rural Schools Act. And because of that, and a joint push by the Northwest delegation, he believes the Rural Schools Act will receive more funding in the '07 federal budget. CRAIG: The collaborate effort that has gone on between resource groups to utilize some of those revenues and projects to fund on-going programs on our public lands, trail cleaning, actually E.I.S.'s for healthy forests kinds of programs, are all a part of the funding mechanism. Those will remain an important part of it, and why I think we can gain a substantial increase beyond the fifty per cent that the Administration talks about.