Report updates county payments losses

Oregon counties face the loss of about 4,000 jobs, $400 million in business sales and $250 million in income when federal funding for the Secure Rural Schools Act runs out June 30, 2012, according to a new report. In this latest report, the economists note that Oregon counties face a steep drop in revenue that will sooner or later require employee layoffs, a reduction of services, less funding for schools, and long-term economic consequences that may push the overall impact even higher unless they receive significant new funding or Congress reauthorizes the federal act. Bruce Weber, an economist who directs the Rural Studies Program at OSU, says the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools act will result in a 94 percent drop in projected federal forest payments in 2013 from the amount counties received in 2008. After timber harvests began declining in the early 1990s, shared revenues declined sharply and Congress passed a series of laws that supplemented shared timber revenues, culminating in the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000...more