School districts across the North State could lose out on critical federal funding today.
Historically, Secure Rural Schools Act funding has helped subsidize the budgets of school districts with a lot of federal land. That’s because federally owned land can't be developed or taxed like commercial land, which leads to less revenue for schools in the area that rely on funding from property taxes.
The act is critical to many North State school districts. Tehama County Superintendent of Schools, Rich DuVarney, said the funding helps solve the challenge of having large swaths of federally owned land in their school district, an issue for many rural areas.
“Therefore we're not able to build homes or use that in a private sense. So then therefore schools are not able to receive any money from those lands," DuVarney said.
Nearly all North State counties receive Secure Rural Schools Act funding, some a significant amount — Plumas, Trinity and Sikiyou all received more than $3 million last year.
DuVarney said schools in his area received nearly half a million dollars through the act.
“That's a significant amount of money for Tehama County," DuVarney said.
The act received bipartisan support for decades until December, when it was pulled from the budget by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Today’s deadline to reassess the act is a result of Northern California Congressman Doug LaMalfa who introduced a bill to reauthorize the funds.
If the bill isn’t approved the funds will not be included in the next federal budget.
