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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 19, 2012 02:55 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Martin T. Causer |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Forest Reserves Municipal Financial Relief Law - Former HB 897 |
| In the near future I intend to reintroduce legislation, which will amend the Forest Reserves Municipal Relief Law. This was House Bill 897 from last session. This legislation is very important for counties in which state agencies own large tracts of land. The state agencies do pay a payment in lieu of taxes to the local municipalities, school districts and counties. However, the state agencies are obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of timber, oil and natural gas from these properties. No revenue from the sale of these resources is coming back to the struggling local municipalities. The local governments where the state land is located are restricted from future economic development and continually struggle with the limited tax base. This legislation would provide for twenty percent of the total revenue collected from the sale of timber, oil and natural gas on state owned land (with the exception of state game lands) to be returned to the local governments in which the resources were harvested. The twenty percent would be split between the county, school district and local municipality. This legislation is similar to federal law that provides revenue to local governments from the sale of timber on the National Forest. Previous Co-Sponsors of HB 897: BAKER, BOYD, CREIGHTON, DENLINGER, EVERETT, FLECK, GABLER, GEIST, GEORGE, GINGRICH, HARRIS, HENNESSEY, HESS, HORNAMAN, JOSEPHS, M. KELLER, MAJOR, METCALFE, MILLARD, MURT, O'NEILL, PEIFER, RAPP, REICHLEY, ROCK, SONNEY, STERN, STEVENSON, SWANGER AND VULAKOVICH |
Introduced as HB444