- Glen Szymoniak joined Klamath students.
- Group
invited to U.S. Capitol visit. - Met
with House Speaker Mike Johnson.
This autumn, Glen Szymoniak and other kids from Klamath
County were thrilled to get an invitation to meet with U.S. House Speaker Mike
Johnson at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The superintendent of the Klamath County School District in
southern Oregon, Szymoniak, said he was informed that the meeting on October 20
would be a kind of celebration. His district has been waiting for vital
government assistance that it has relied on for twenty-five years for almost a
year.
This fall, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of
Representatives hinted that they were prepared to declare that they were
proceeding with a vote to extend the 25-year-old law that gave Oregon’s rural
communities and schools tens of millions of dollars annually.
The Secure Rural seminaries and Community tone-
Determination Act has been renewed doubly since December of last time by the
U.S. Senate, thanks to the efforts of elderly U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, a
Democrat who co-authored the original 2000 law, and elderly U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo
of Idaho, a Republican.
Still, the House never votes
on it after the Senate has authorized it. Counties haven’t entered payments
since early 2024, and the bill expired in 2023. In their July tax and spending
cut megalaw, House Republicans most recently failed to reauthorize the Secure
Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.
Unfortunately for Szymoniak and the students, Johnson, a
Republican from Louisiana, called off their meeting after the government closed
for a record 43 days in October. Since then, Szymoniak claimed to have heard
nothing regarding Secure Rural Schools’ future.
Wyden and Crapo, who issued a letter to Johnson and House
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, on Thursday, barely
two weeks before the House concludes its work for the year, encouraging them to
vote on the legislation before they recess.
Wyden and Crapo are pressuring House leaders to hold a vote
for the third time since late 2024. This time, 83 bipartisan members of the
House and Senate joined the two, stating that a vote was required.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, which has provided billions of
dollars over the years in funding for schools, roads, and other public services
and infrastructure to counties in Oregon, 40 other states, and Puerto Rico that
have sizable portions of federal land within their borders, is one of the many
rural school districts in the nation that have relied on this funding.
When counties use such federal lands for operations that
bring in money for the federal government, the federal revenues assist pay for
the expenses they incur in delivering essential services to citizens and
businesses.
More than half of Oregon’s land is managed by the federal
government, and since the Secure Rural Schools Act was not renewed, Oregon has
suffered the worst loss of any state.
According to a September analysis from the liberal public
policy and think tank Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., Oregon
has missed out on about $48.6 million in federal funding for rural roads,
public services, and schools since it expired in 2023.
Additionally, out of all the school districts in the state,
the Klamath County School District has benefited the most from the act,
receiving between $800,000 and $1 million annually. The funds are essential for
the school’s infrastructure and “investing in the future,” Szymoniak
told the Capital Chronicle.
