Deadline nears for rural East Texas to get badly-needed federal money
WASHINGTON -- Almost a dozen pine-covered East Texas counties face dramatic cuts to school and road maintenance budgets if Congress fails to soon approve federal funding meant for counties with National Forest Service land.
Portions of proceeds from federal timber sales, given to the forested counties because they can’t tax federal land, used to make up a large portion of county budgets. But as timber revenue fell nationwide, the counties have had to rely on congressionally approved funds to shore up county government budgets.
In 2018, Texas received about $2 million in federal Secure Rural Schools funding to partially pay for schools and road maintenance projects in counties which have untaxable federal forest land, forest service data show. About a dozen forested counties in Texas annually each receive hundreds of thousands from Washington.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who represents much of the affected area, has said that the federal forest service is “killing” rural schools in his district because of a department decision to focus more on forest management than selling federal timber. Gohmert said that the decision forces the local governments to instead accept the congressionally approved funds.
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