Tax Policy

New activities can help guarantee and diversify future revenue from New Mexico state trust lands, complementing the successful Land Grant Permanent Fund.

States tend to spend, rather than save, federal fossil fuel disbursements, potentially making them vulnerable to economic transitions.

Climate change has the potential to destabilize general operating budgets and constrain access to lending markets. These presentations share promising solutions for “climate-proofing” budgets.

This panel discussion, with examples from Montana and New Mexico, examines how fiscal policies have failed rural communities.

State and federal fiscal policies hurt rural communities by limiting how local governments can grow, diversify, and invest revenue.

Where rural recreation counties rely on public funding for health care, fiscal solutions should diversify the ways local governments can save and spend.

The bipartisan Forest Health for Rural Stability Act would establish a federal land endowment and resolve key challenges of federal land payments to counties.

Analysis shows raising Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) population limits for small-population counties would have increased total payments by $2 million in 2019.

Reforming county payments by establishing a permanent Trust to fund Secure Rural Schools (SRS).

Coal fiscal policies vary widely across the West in terms of how revenue is generated, set aside in permanent savings, or spent by state and local governments.