Representatives of the Western Counties Alliance offered an invitation to join and brought good news about funding from the federal governments payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) program during a visit with the Grand County Council last week.

Mark Walsh and Ken Brown told the council that Grand County will soon receive an additional $396,988 from PILT for fiscal year 2008. The county received $654,225 in June and will receive more than $1 million for 2009.

PILT receipts are shared by the county with the Grand County School District, which gets 51 percent of the total.

In addition, the federal Secure Rural Schools Program will be funded at 100 percent from fiscal years 2008 through 2011. This means that the county will get another $80,000 or so on top of $3,553 already received. These funds must be used for schools or roads on which school buses travel.

The Western Counties Alliance was organized three years ago to lobby on public lands issues affecting Western counties. “We’d love to have Grand County become part of the alliance,” Walsh said as he claimed credit for achieving full funding for PILT. The program has been recently funded by Congress at less than two-thirds the authorized amount.

There was no discussion among council members about joining the alliance, at an annual fee of $7,500, or about Walsh’s claims of responsibility for increasing PILT. Prior to Walsh and Brown’s appearance, councilman Jerry McNeely said the group comes to the county every year seeking money for help in lobbying Congress on behalf of Grand County.

Council member Audrey Graham asked what priority the association will pursue next. Walsh said that county claims to RS-2477 road rights will now come to the fore.

On its website, the alliance states that its second priority after PILT is “reforming the Wilderness Act and educating the public, the media [and] policy makers about why formal wilderness designation is almost invariably irresponsible land resource management.”