The Washington State Treasurer’s office expects to distribute $1,430,646.54 in Secure Rural Schools funds to Lewis County by the end of the week.
Last week, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell announced that counties in Washington state would receive $18.3 million in SRS funding. At the time, a press release from Cantwell’s office said Lewis County would receive “over” $1 million.
Lewis County Budget Manager Becky Butler said half of these funds are supposed to go to the school districts and the other half to county road projects. However, sources from the county, state and federal level could not answer how much each individual school district should receive of these funds.
The press release, which Cantwell’s office sent on Tuesday, May 8 stated, “Through the reauthorization of SRS, Washington counties including Chelan, Lewis, Okanogan and Yakima will receive, this week, over $1 million each and Skamania will receive over $3 million.”
Revenue Distribution Manager Nancy Morris with the Washington State Treasurer’s Office said the agency originally only received $13,669,000 earlier this week, of the expected $18.3 million from the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the funds.
Congress reauthorized the SRS program this year, after it expired several years ago. However, without the full $18.3 million, the state could not disperse any of the funds. This delayed payments to the counties.
Morris said on Tuesday that the state Treasurer’s Office expects to send the full amount to Lewis County by the end of this week.
Of the $1,430,646.54 coming to Lewis County, of which roughly $715,000 is earmarked for the school districts, it remains unclear how much each school district will receive.
After the state distributes money to the counties, it’s the county treasurer’s office that typically disburses state funds to smaller taxing districts, such as school districts.
At the county level, however, sources were unsure how the money would be split up among the school districts. Commissioner Edna Fund said that the counties do not decide which schools receive the money. Commissioner Gary Stamper, who serves on the Secure Rural Schools Coalition, did not return multiple requests for comment. Lewis County Treasurer Arny Davis said he disburses SRS funds based on direction from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was introduced in 2000 with the purpose of supplementing funds to rural counties and schools previously received from taxes on timber sales. Before the act was passed, rural counties and schools received 25 percent of the revenue from timber sales in national forests.
The SRS program has expired and been reauthorized several times, including its most recent expiration in 2015. The last authorized SRS payments were in calendar year 2016, according to the National Association of Counties. However, Congress passed a spending bill in 2018 to reauthorize the program. Payments to the states will include payments from the 2017 fiscal year.
In previous years, school districts have had to return the SRS funds to the state for basic education spending. However, it may not be the case this year.
“My understanding is right now the money is not taken out of our apportionment,” said Ed Petersen, communications and public relations coordinator for Centralia School District. “My understanding is we will be able to keep that money in our general fund.”
Superintendent Chris Rust from Toledo School District said Toledo kept the funds in school year 2015-16, but had to return them to the state in 2016-17 for basic education.
“That was the way that it typically had been, was that it was given back to the state,” Rust said. “So that was ordinary. The reaction I had to it the first year was ‘this was wonderful.’ I had nothing to compare it with when I first got here. I was told it was unusual that we got to keep the money.”
Rust added, “We’re just grateful that the federal government is going to restore those funds. Whether we get to keep them or not, they’re going to kids in Washington state.”
The other half of the SRS money will go toward roads in the county. Public Works Director Erik Martin said the money will be used for restoration resurfacing and chip seal, which is a surfacing treatment on county roads that is much less expensive than paving. It’s used on county roads with lower volumes of traffic.
