Leflore County is set to receive more than $6,000 from the federal government to help offset some losses in property taxes.
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran announced this week that the state would receive a total of $1.98 million in Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT).
PILT payments are intended to help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands.
Leflore County was set to receive $6,593 for 2,541 acres of land. The amount is a $628 increase from 2015’s payment of $5,965.
Holmes County was allotted $2,547 for 947 acres, Montgomery was granted $312 for 120 acres and Carroll County won’t receive any returns on its 5 acres of tax-exempt land.
As a whole, the Delta received over $455,000.
The $1,988,191 Mississippi grand total is $154,248 more than last year’s payment. Seventy-six of the state’s 82 counties will receive 2016 PILT funding.
The Delta’s Sharkey County is among the top three highest paid counties. Sharkey was set to receive $140, 873 for 67,294 acres of non-taxable federal lands.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, whose Office of the Secretary has administrative authority over the PILT program, calculates payments according to the formulas established by law and distributes the available funds.
In a press release, Cochran said counties were free to “use the funding to supplement their general budgets.” PILT payments help local governments maintain services such as firefighting, police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.
The formula used to compute the payments is based on population, receipt sharing payments, and the amount of federal land within an affected county.
The DOI planned to make all payments by July 1. A Wednesday press release from the department stated that it had given $451.6 million to approximately 1,900 local governments.
• Contact Chloe Ricks at 581-7124 or crickss@gwcommonwealth.com.
