Powerful Bipartisan Opportunity to Increase City, County and State Resources (at almost no cost)

Great news for Utah, but you wouldn't know it if you read a typically slanted article in the SLTribune, in which they tried to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear, unfairly disparaging a former public servant in the process.

The truth is, there is unanimous, bipartisan support for this PILT effort (payment in lieu of taxes) - something that is never mentioned in the article. 

Most people know that two-thirds of our state is federal land. Only one state, Nevada, cedes a larger percentage of land to the federal government. This is because Utah and some other western states did not receive automatic transfer of federal land to state ownership at the time of statehood. Roughly 65% of Utah's land does not generate tax revenue to help pay for roads and schools, for example. Our growing population is increasingly hemmed in, and the value of private land continues to go up. 

If you remove federal land from Utah's boundaries, our state would be approximately the size of South Carolina, falling from 13th to 40th in terms of size. In this case, size matters, because land is valuable, even if it is undeveloped. If someone owns land, they pay property taxes on it, which benefits cities, counties and the state. 

The news today was that the Utah Federalism Commission, through the analysis of Geomancer, has identified 217,000 federal acres currently located in Utah's 249 cities and towns. (Some of these acres are completely enclosed by private land.) In 2019, the federal government paid Utah $1.4million for that land (according to the article), but if those acres were privately owned (again, acres already within the borders of existing cities and towns) they would generate $1.7BILLION! (See the slide show link below) 

And it's been done before! Nevada's former Senator Harry Reid was able to transfer federal land in and around Las Vegas to private ownership while their population was surging. Utah's population is also surging. 

This is a win-win-win. Shame on the Tribune for painting it as some sort of sinister scheme, when it could benefit people across the state and help Utah recover more quickly from this economic downturn. 

https://le.utah.gov/interim/2020/pdf/00002568.pdf

My response on Facebook to someone skeptical of the effort:

It is a fact that 34million acres of land in Utah (65%) is controlled by the federal government, even though it is within out state boundaries. This has been an injustice since 1896, because most states received almost all of the land within their borders at statehood, but Utah did not. Some of that land is being put to good use (our priceless National Parks, for example, and Hill AFB) but most of it is not. It is under-utilized. We cannot live on it or open a business on it that would yield property tax, income tax, or sales tax revenues. This proposal from the Utah Federalism Commission would ask the federal government to give us the 217,000 acres they hold WITHIN Utah's 249 cities and towns, so that communities can expand and prosper. The federal government did this once before - Harry Reid negotiated to recoup parcels of land in and around Las Vegas because their population was growing, like Utah's. Our legislature and congressional delegation are trying to do that same. There is nothing shady or untoward about this effort, which has had unanimous bipartisan support. If we are successful in reclaiming acres within cities and towns only, Utah cities, towns and counties would have the money they need to operate (build roads, etc.) without huge property tax increases. Utah would gain $1.7Billion annually! Most people would agree the software cost to create this analysis and proposal will be money well spent if we are successful. Or we could just sit here and look at the sagebrush. To see the whole presentation of 34 slides on this subject, go to https://le.utah.gov/interim/2020/pdf/00002568.pdf

A Facebook response from Ken Ivory that does a good job of explaining the situation:

Ken Ivory Kerry Lund I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t know that we have ever met. This initiative has nothing to do with who controls or manages federally managed public lands.
This initiative stems from a conversation Jim Dabakis and I had in 2017 that so long as the federal government controlled the lands, they should honor their promise to treat our children and communities fairly.
We ran a resolution together HCR19 (2018) and the accompanying bill HB357 (2018) was cosponsored by every member of the Utah House on both sides of the aisle.
The initiative was to determine the fair taxable value that the federal government promised in 1976 to pay to Utah to make up for the presence of non taxable federally co trolled lands.
Sadly, since 1976, the federal government, nor did the State, have any way of calculating the fair taxable value of 35 million acres in a timely manner. So, the federal government came up with a formula that doesn’t take into account the value of these lands at all. That has now all changed. We have the ability to determine the value of millions of unique acres of land in real time.
This effort is simply about determina this fair taxable value which the federal government already promised to pay so that we can receive the amount they promised to the benefit of our children, communities and the inordinate burden that has been placed in Utah taxpayers for the past several decades.
This has already been done in Southern Nevada by Sen Harry Reid. Why would we not want to ensure that the federal government is paying its full and promised shared form the lands it controls?