Wallowa County got word that its “timber money” was on the way last week when Sen. Ron Wyden announced that Oregon would receive nearly $61 million in Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) money.

Wallowa County does not share in the BLM payments, but its award is estimated at $1,223,032. Title 1 money makes up $1.039,577 of that and Title 2 money the balance of $183.454. Title II money is earmarked, by law, for restoration of public lands and nearby private lands. Weed control is an example of a program that benefits from Title 2 money. Approximately $636,594 from the Title 1 money will go to roads. The balance of Title 1 money will go to schools in the county.

The numbers are still not concrete, said County Commissioner Mike Hayward, because the amounts are dependent upon other considerations at the state level that have not yet been taken into account.

“As a good example of just how uncertain these estimates are, we already have a revision,” Hayward said.

Daniel Hauser, policy specialist for the County Road Program for the Association of Oregon Counties warned counties that the numbers were “very much estimates, as there are a variety of unanswered questions still in play. The payments can swing by over $8 million (statewide) over the next two years based on these unanswered questions, a significant variation.”

The exact breakdown of where the money goes within the county, and how much each agency and school will receive will be published as soon as it is are available.

SRS money comes from timber harvested on U.S. Forest Service land with some additional funds from the Bureau of Land Management and is designed to help rural communities that relied on timber harvest for economic stability.

Senator Wyden co-wrote the SRS program in 2000 with then-Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. It amended the original 1908 Forest Service County payments program to better reflect the needs of rural counties that had been reliant on timber money.

The program has faced funding problems ever since, expiring in 2007 to be reinstated in 2008, and expiring again in 2014. The reauthorization retroactively restores funding for 2014 and carries that through 2015.