Diversifying NACo revenue sources, key goal in FY16 budget

NACo Legislative Priorities 2016

The National Association of Counties (NACo) supports federal policies and programs that equip county governments with the resources and tools needed to effectively serve their residents. Each year NACo’s Board of Directors adopts the association’s federal policy priorities, which help shape NACo’s advocacy efforts on behalf of America’s counties. All NACo advocacy is shaped by its underlying core commitment to preserving local decision-making, and opposing unfunded mandates and preemption of local authority.

PROTECT THE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS OF MUNICIPAL BONDS: NACo supports the preservation of the federal deductibility of local prop­erty and income taxes and the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds that provide critical funding for public facilities, infrastructure and development. Provisions like the tax exemption for municipal bond interest have been part of the federal tax code for over 100 years, helping finance more than $3.7 trillion in public works projects.

PROTECT THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP FOR MEDICAID: NACo supports maintaining the federal-state-local structure for financing and deliver­ing Medicaid services. Counties continue to be concerned about measures that would limit the ability of states to direct supplemental pay­ments to county providers, curtail the ability of counties to contribute local funds to match federal dollars or otherwise shift health care costs to counties, including cutting, capping or block-granting Medicaid.

PROMOTE COUNTY PRIORI­TIES IN SURFACE TRANSPOR­TATION IMPLEMENTATION, FUNDING AND FINANCING: NACo will work to ensure that the new surface transportation law is implemented to reflect county priorities, including allocating more funding for locally owned infra­structure, increasing local decision making authority and prioritizing investments that increase safety. Additionally, NACo continues to urge Congress to resolve the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund through user-fee based revenue sources.

SUPPORT COUNTY AUTHOR­ITY TO COLLECT EXISTING SALES TAX: NACo supports legislation to permit the collection of existing sales and use taxes from remote sellers. The issue of taxing remote sales has compounded in recent years due to the extraordi­nary development of the Internet as a retail marketplace. As a result, state and local governments have lost billions in uncollected sales taxes and Main Street business find themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage to various online sellers.

SUPPORT THE PAYMENT IN LIEU OF TAXES (PILT) AND SE­CURE RURAL SCHOOLS (SRS) PROGRAMS: NACo supports restoring full mandatory fund­ing for the PILT program which compensates counties for tax-exempt federal land within their boundaries. NACo also supports extending the SRS program as a transitional funding mechanism until the federal government fully implements a sustainable long-term forest management program with adequate revenue sharing for forest counties and schools.

SUPPORT POLICIES TO PRE­VENT AND TREAT MENTAL ILL­NESS AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND REDUCE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITH METNAL ILL­NESS IN JAILS: NACo supports measures that maintain funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminis­tration (SAMHSA) block grants, fully implement and expand mental health parity, ease the Institute of Mental Disease (IMD) exclusion, expand access to health informa­tion technology (HIT), develop and expand the behavioral health workforce, simplify health privacy provisions, respond to the needs of veterans and provide services across the life cycle. NACo also supports programs and legislation to support local efforts to reduce mental illness in jails and provide appropriate treatment to those in custody.

PROTECT COUNTY INTER­EST IN “WATERS OF THE U.S.” RULEMAKING: NACo believes that local streets, gutters and human made ditches should be excluded from the definition of “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) under the federal Clean Water Act. NACo calls on Congress to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw the new WOTUS rule and rewrite it in consultation and collaboration with state and local governments.