Vital federal funding for rural schools may expire

CSBA has advocated for a long-term extension of the Secure Rural Schools Act during Coast2Coast advocacy trips

The Secure Rural Schools (SRS) and Community Self-Determination Act is in danger of expiring, leaving thousands of rural schools with national forest land in their borders at risk of underfunding at the same time a host of other factors like declining enrollment and declining state revenues chip away at school budgets. SRS provides payments to counties (for roads) and to public schools. It also provides payments to counties to invest in Forest Improvement Projects on national forest land and funding for specific projects and programs in counties.

The act authorizes counties to create, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), collaborative resource advisory committees. This act was enormously successful in restoring county and school revenues to their 1980s and early-‘90s levels, resulting in the restoration of public services and school programs. The original SRS authorization expired in September 2006.

SRS supports school programs for students and has prevented the closure of numerous isolated rural schools. It has been the primary funding mechanism to provide rural students with transportation and educational opportunities comparable to students in suburban and urban areas of the state. Nationally, more than 4,400 rural schools receive SRS funds in 41 states. In California, school districts and county offices of education in 29 counties receive SRS funding.

Since 2006, Congress has approved nine program extensions, but there have also been various funding reductions to the program that have frayed the safety net established by SRS. In 2021, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included an extension of SRS and funding for fiscal years 2021–23. Declining SRS payments constitute very short-term financial support for the disintegrating SRS safety net serving 9 million students and county citizens in over 4,000 school districts in more than 700 forest counties and communities in 41 states.

Additionally, wildfires are devastating forest lands across the country. California fires are burning forest acreage the size of East Coast cities. As forest communities pay the personal economic price, Congress must act on long-term forest management, fire prevention and reauthorization of SRS.

“The Secure Rural Schools Act is an essential funding source for California’s rural school districts and county offices of education,” said CSBA Director of State and Federal Programs Erika Hoffman. “While CSBA was pleased the act was reauthorized in the 2021 Infrastructure bill, those provisions were only authorized through FY 2023. Congress must act on forest management, fire control and long-term SRS funding as forest communities and schools fight for economic survival. SRS is critical to support essential safety, fire, police, road and bridge, and education services.”

CSBA has been advocating for a long-term extension of SRS at the 2023 and 2024 Coast2Coast Federal Advocacy Trip in partnership with the Association for California School Administrators. Specifically, this year’s advocacy focused on S 2581 and HR 5030 — the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2023, which would provide short-term funding for FY 2024, 2025 and 2026.

History

In establishing the country’s national forest system, Congress intended for that system to be managed in a sustained, multiple-use manner in perpetuity. Further, it was also intended to provide revenues for local counties, schools and the federal treasury in perpetuity, known as the Twenty-Five Percent Act of 1908.

From 1908 until about 1986, this revenue-sharing mechanism worked well and provided forest schools and counties with a critical revenue stream. However, from 1986 to the present, for a variety of reasons, the sustained active multi-use management of the national forests and revenues have swiftly declined. Most counties have seen a decline of more than 85 percent in actual revenues generated by national forests, largely because of the decline in timber sales and grazing.

To help counties and school districts in rural communities recover revenues lost since the mid-1980s, Congress passed HR 2389 in 2000, otherwise known as the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (PL 106-393), to provide funding to counties and school districts. It was intended to stabilize income for the rural regions that rely heavily on receipts from timber sales and other programs.

When first enacted, SRS provided nearly $60 million annually to California’s forest counties, with half of the funding allocated to school districts and the other half allocated to counties for county roads. SRS initially expired in 2006 and has since been reauthorized multiple times. However, each reauthorization has reduced the amount of funding for the program. In total, California has received only $38 million in funding since the 2012 reauthorization.