Dubois County Among Nine Indiana Counties Receiving Retroactive Secure Rural Schools Payments

Dubois County will receive a share of $240,813 in retroactive federal payments after the U.S. Forest Service announced March 11 that nine Indiana counties would get 2024 Secure Rural Schools funds that were held up by a congressional reauthorization lapse.

The nine counties, all of which contain portions of the Hoosier National Forest, qualify for the payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. Along with Dubois County, the recipients are Crawford, Lawrence, Martin, Orange, Perry, Brown, Jackson, and Monroe counties. No county-level breakdown of the $240,813 total has been released.

The reconciliation was required because Congress had not reauthorized the Secure Rural Schools program when 2024 payments were originally issued. Under that circumstance, the Forest Service was legally obligated to make initial payments using the older 1908 revenue-sharing framework instead. With the program now reauthorized, the agency is reconciling payments to ensure counties receive the full amounts owed.

The 1908 framework has long been the backbone of federal forest revenue sharing, directing 25% of Forest Service receipts from timber sales, mineral leases, livestock grazing, and recreation fees to states and counties containing national forests. By the 1990s, however, long-term declines in timber revenue had sharply reduced those payments, prompting Congress to enact the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 as a more stable funding alternative for rural communities dependent on national forest land.

The 2024 payments carry both Title I and Title III allocations. Title I funds support education, transportation infrastructure, and critical community services. Title III dollars are directed toward wildfire readiness, including support for Firewise Communities programs, reimbursement for emergency services counties provide on national forest land, and assistance developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans. Officials say those wildfire-focused investments improve coordination between local emergency responders and Forest Service wildfire teams.

Separately, Dubois County recently received $2.8 million in Indiana Department of Transportation grants for safety improvements, part of a round of INDOT awards that also included $2.7 million each to Daviess and Pike counties for bridge projects and $90,000 to Martin County for countywide safety work. Those grants, which require a 20% local match and federal compliance, are unrelated to the Forest Service Secure Rural Schools payments and come from a different funding source entirely.

The Forest Service has not announced a specific distribution timeline for the retroactive SRS funds, and county officials have not yet stated publicly how Dubois County plans to allocate its portion across the eligible program areas.