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Northern Minnesota counties will receive a boost of nearly $9 Million thanks to the 2023 Legislature. The new funding is designed for Counties with large public land holdings and is known as Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT). It is intended to compensate counties for the loss of property taxes on the State’s vast acreage of public land in Northern Minnesota. Northern counties are disproportionately dependent on PILT funding. when compared to other regions of the state.
Due to the large acreage of public lands in these counties and the resulting lost tax base, PILT can account for 10 percent to 50 percent of a county’s revenue. These dollars offset county levies and help provide property tax relief.
Pennington County Commissioner Neil Peterson, Chair of the 10 county Northern Counties Land Use Coordinating Board (NCLUCB) stated that: “An NCLUCB study revealed that there is a growing geographic disparity between the distribution of public lands and the distribution of PILT payments. For example, we found that just six counties: Aitkin, Beltrami, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods and St. Louis host 62 percent of Minnesota’s public lands but receive only 39 percent of the state’s total PILT payments. We are both pleased and grateful that the 2023 Legislature adopted our recommendations to reduce the statewide inequities in PILT reimbursements and increase funds to counties with disproportionately high levels of public lands.”
St. Louis County Commissioner and NCLUCB Vice-Chair Paul McDonald saluted two northern legislators: “We must acknowledge the leadership role of the two chief authors of this legislation: Senator Grant Hauschild and Representative David Lislegard. They effectively articulated the fiscal necessity for increased public land payments to counties throughout the state generally, and for counties with large tracts of public lands most specifically.”
Commissioner Rich Sve, Chair of the Lake County Board and NCLUCB past chair reflected on the significance of the PILT reimbursement increases: “County commissioners understand the environmental and recreational value of these large tracts of public lands as well as the costs required to sustain this remarkable resource. I served on the Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources PILT Advisory Group in 2012 that first recognized that counties with a disproportionate share of public lands should receive additional funding consideration. It’s taken 10 years of focused work by NCLUCB counties and our Northern legislators, as well as organizations like the Association of Minnesota Counties, to achieve this funding goal.”
Through this legislation, northern counties received substantial increases in their PILT payments.
Editor’s note: When reaching out to John Chell about where Cook County stands on the list of counties receiving PLT he replied, “Cook County will receive a 38.6 percent increase or approx. $146,500 for a total annual payment of $525,600. Please note that this is state funding for state/ county public lands. Cook County has 145,000 acres of state/county public lands or about 15 percent of the Cook County land base.
“The Federal Gov’t manages approximately 638,000 acres or about 68 percent of Cook County and provides an annual payment to Cook County of $801,000.
“Total public land ownership in Cook County is 83 percent of the land base.”
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