Wyoming Counties Receive $31 Million from Dept. of Interior

The Department of the Interior is allocating over $31 million to all 23 Wyoming counties to maintain public lands as part of the annual Payments in Lieu of Taxes funding.

The Department of the Interior announced that 23 local governments in Wyoming will receive $31.5 million in Payments in Lieu of Taxes (P.I.L.T.) funding for 2022. Because local governments cannot tax federal lands, annual P.I.L.T. payments defray the costs of maintaining important community services.

P.I.L.T. payments are made for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the Department’s agencies – including the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service.

In addition, P.I.L.T. payments cover federal lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission.

“This program is an important example of the federal government’s commitment to continuing to be a good neighbor to the communities we serve. The nearly $550 million being distributed will help local governments carry out vital services, such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

Since P.I.L.T. payments began in 1977, the Department has distributed nearly $10.8 billion to states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Payments are calculated based on the number of acres of federal land and the population of each county or jurisdiction where the land resides.

The Department collects more than $12.1 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on public lands. A portion of those revenues is shared with states and counties. The balance is deposited into the U.S. Treasury, which pays for various federal activities, including P.I.L.T. funding.

Individual payments to states may vary from year to year for various reasons:

• Changes in acreage data, which is updated annually by the federal agency administering the land
• Prior-year federal revenue-sharing payments reported annually by the Governor of each state
• Inflationary adjustments using the Consumer Price Index
• Population data, which are updated using information from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A complete list of funding by state and county is available on Department’s Payments in Lieu of Taxes page.

Here is the breakdown of the 2022 fiscal year payments for each Wyoming county.

• Albany County- $1,716,873 for 674,030 acres
• Big Horn County – $1,301,748 for 1,544,881 acres
• Campbell County – $645,398 for 367,961 acres
• Carbon County – $1,566,471 – for 2,720,846 acres
• Converse County – $577,196 for 404,759 acres
• Crook County – $836,606 for 333,822 acres
• Fremont County – $2,999,917 for 3,185,743 acres
• Goshen Couny – $80,264 for 27,320 acres
• Hot Springs County- $854,356 for 569,846 acres
• Johnson County – $1,214,068 for 830,369 acres
• Laramie County – $27,934 for 9,508 acres
• Lincoln County – $1,689,280 for 1,945,644 acres
• Natrona County – $3,952,693 for 1,484,665 acres
• Niobrara County – $364,878 for 125,090 acres
• Park County – $2,302,877 for 3,593,192 acres
• Platte County – $311,831 for 106,332 acres
• Sheridan County – $1,145,656 for 438,779 acres
• Sublette County – $1,019,082 for 2,428,121 acres
• Sweetwater County – $3,672,858 for 4,601,799 acres
• Teton County – $2,131,295 for 2,619,670 acres
• Uinta County – $1,640,254 for 568,322 acres
• Washakie County – $1,276,085 for 959,405 acres
• Weston County – $194,169 for 308,597 acres

TOTAL $31,521,789 29,848,701