The discontinuation of Secure Rural Schools funding means a loss for the Haines Borough, but the cut in federal funding won’t dent the municipality’s budget.
Chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart said last week that because program funding hasn’t been certain, the borough didn’t include it in its budget projections.
The money – compensation to communities around national forests impacted by the reduction of federal revenues from commercial logging – has averaged $393,000 to the Haines Borough during the past 13 years. The amount has been declining for about four years and last year dropped to $131,581.
In December, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the Senate’s inability to fund even a short-term extension of the program was a “major disappointment.”
“The simplest explanation for the lack of SRS funding in our flurry of year-end legislation is that the program is increasingly difficult to fund, as the rising costs of resource restrictions collide head-on with an ever-tighter federal budget,” Murkowski said.
Money from the program is spent on local schools and roads.