Feds increase Nevada’s PILT funding

The Department of Interior has added nearly $2 million more to Nevada’s annual Payment In Lieu of Taxes funding this year.

PILT provides funding for infrastructure and public safety needs in the state to compensate counties where the vast majority of land is federally owned and, therefore, exempt from property taxes. Some of Nevada’s rural counties are more than 95 percent federal property.

The state’s counties received nearly $23.3 million in June. The October payment raises that total to $25,244,861 for the year.

Gov. Brian Sandoval thanked the state’s four House and two Senate members for their work to secure the added cash and the Interior Department for, “fulfilling its obligation to compensate local communities for the land owned by the federal government in Nevada.”

The largest recipients of the cash are Clark, Elko, Nye and Washoe counties, each of which received more than $3 million in PILT funding. They were followed by Lyon and Churchill counties each with just more than $2 million in receipts.

But every county, even tiny Storey, received some cash — a total of $36,938.