Dinosaur tracks and parts of the Painted Desert Region can be found in Tuba City, a rural Navajo Nation community in Northern Arizona where Lena Fowler lives and handles some of her responsibilities as a Coconino County Supervisor. Her district is dotted with other small communities like hers, some that bleed into the Navajo Nation and another that bumps up against the Utah border. 

These communities are home to sacred indigenous sites, one of the state’s few ski resorts, alpine and desert environments, and the largest Ponderosa pine-tree-stand in the world. As a county supervisor, Fowler works with a variety of elected officials and community leaders to make sure the funding her district needs is secured. 

While each of these communities, from Fredonia, to Page, to Flagstaff, and Williams, have their own unique personalities and needs, they have one significant financial characteristic in common. Their tax bases are limited by the federal lands that surround them.

The Secure Rural Schools program, administered by the USDA through the Forest Service, fills critical funding gaps for communities like these.

“These dollars are very much essential to the communities for maintenance of roads, mainly on the rural roads that school buses travel on,” Fowler said. “County tax dollars wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs being met right now through Secure Rural Schools funding.”

Because of how vital the funds are to the county, Fowler said that she and her colleagues are constantly advocating for reauthorization of the funds — reaching out to the state’s senators to make sure they understand just how important the funding is. 

Specifically, the funding addresses needs such as road repairs, school staffing and programming, and facility support. The program was designed to plug a financial hole that counties experienced when timber harvest revenue on federal lands was lost.

“If it was canceled, it would have a major impact on the services. The counties really rely on Secure Rural Schools,” Fowler said of the funding. “The county budget would shrink as a result of it, especially in the areas where there’s a lot of national forest areas. The infrastructure would be impacted.”

Fowler said the rural town of Fredonia, just four miles from the Utah line, shows why SRS matters. As a small district in a county with large areas of nontaxable federal land, Fredonia relies on SRS to stabilize its budget. If SRS lapses, the district could face mid-year shortfalls that translate into larger class sizes, staff reductions, trimmed bus routes over long distances, deferred maintenance, and cuts to essentials like aides, counselors, CTE, arts, and athletics.

Through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds provided by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Greenbrier County has received around $600,000 to remove approximately 50 dilapidated and abandoned structures.

“In our unincorporated areas of the county, and particularly in the Meadow River Valley, just being able to remove those structures has made a huge difference in attitudes,” Tincher said. “It’s given us a clean slate. You’re not just driving down the road, and every other structure that you come across is falling down. It’s really helped the vibrancy of our communities.”

Removing abandoned buildings brings new pride and increases attractiveness to visitors. “People are driving here to see a National Park, or they’re driving here to go white water rafting,” she said. “The beauty of our area and the beauty of our state is just second to none. These structures, they’re not what we want people to remember. So this funding, for our communities, has provided a solution that has been needed for so long.”