Commissioners travel to Washington D.C., Denver, to meet with officials as budget deadline looms

As Lincoln County’s 2014-15 budget edges closer to being finalized – with a $200,000 cut to the sheriff’s department that was confirmed last week - Lincoln County commissioners are hoping last month’s trip to Washington D.C. and Denver gave federal officials a strong visual of further cuts the county faces.

Eureka Commissioner Mike Cole said he and Libby Commissioner Tony Berget made the trip during the middle of May, visiting the U.S.  Fish and Wildlife offices and the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver before flying to Washington D.C.  to meet with U.S. Sen. John Walsh, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and U.S.  Rep. Steve Daines.

The purpose of the trip was to have a face-to-face meeting with the officials who could influence the decisions being made regarding the regulations that limit the harvesting of the county’s resources, Cole said.

“We have a lot of resources here – we have the forests and the mining – and we want to fund ourselves. We have the ability to fund ourselves,” Cole said. “We would be fine if rules and regulations would allow us to use these resources – we can take care of ourselves if they would just let us.”

Berget said the most pressing reasons they made the trip was to ask for certainty on Secure Rural Schools revenue (SRS) – which at its peak in 2009 was more than $4 million but by 2013 had dropped to $2,867,586 – and to make a push for logging, as well as mining and the possibility of receiving revenue from the Libby Dam through the Columbia River Treaty.

Alongside the graph of SRS funding, a second graph was used to show the decline of the timber-harvest values in Lincoln County, which has dropped from $4.5 million in 1994, down to $1 million in 2004 and finally to just over $329,000 in 2013.

The laminated booklet Berget and Cole brought with them also included letters exchanged on the Flower Creek Dam Replacement project costs and an article on a lawsuit that pushes the reclassification of Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears from a threatened to endangered species. It also contains a graph of the county’s investment earnings, which have plunged from $1,156,415 in 2008 to $143,348 in 2013.

Coming to into Washington D.C. offices with graphs of the county’s financial woes was probably more effective than just showing them numbers, Berget said.

“With emails and talking on the phone, it’s so easy for them to say ‘yeah, yeah, yeah – okay we hear you,’” Berget said. “But sitting down and talking to somebody, you can read their expressions. You can say what you need until you’re blue in the face. But they sometimes need to see the desperation in your eyes.”

The estimated cost of the trip was about $5,000 for both commissioners, including airfare and accommodation, Berget said.

 It was “well worth the dollars” to have a face-to-face over a possible $3 million in SRS funding, Berget said.

House representative Mike Cuffe said he understood the trip had also attempted to “open up continuing dialogue” on what Lincoln County could receive through the renegotiation of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. in Canada.

“The county commissioners see the real value in that,” Cuffe said, explaining background to his statement that the commissioners brought with them on their trip, as another example of how the county was being short-changed.

In the statement, Cuffe writes that he is seeking monetary compensation for taxpayers and citizens in Lincoln County, based on the same formula that British Columbia and the Columbia Basin Trust is currently compensated for water storage.

‘It’s saying ‘hey, we were not treated justly. You compensated Canada for storage of water to prevent flooding downstream and that was turned into electricity and additional revenue,’” Cuffe said.“Lincoln county sacrificed timber, crops, grazing, hunting, and fishing [for the Libby Dam].”

Berget said there was some interest from U.S. Fish and Wildlife regional director Noreen Walsh  – who they met with in Denver – in coming up to Lincoln County for further discussions.

On Monday, Rep. Daines said in a statement that he appreciated the commissioners taking the time to discuss their shared support for the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act and other ways they could work together to grow Lincoln County’s economy and create jobs.

“Responsible and active management of the Kootenai and Montana’s other national forests is critical for the health of Montana’s economy and the health of the forests themselves,” Rep. Daines stated. “We can revitalize the timber industry in Lincoln County and create thousands of good, long-term jobs throughout Montana by cutting the red tape that is holding up responsible forest management and timber production.”

However,  nothing more was known about immediate funding that would impact the 2014-15 budget.

“We still haven’t seen anything on SRS,” Berget said, adding that the possible $3 million injection had always come in last minute, and it was never a given. “We’re in the cusp of the budget now and making those cuts, but we’re living on the notion that we don’t have SRS [funding] coming in.”