For nearly a century, school and county government officials in the Pacific Northwest have relied on federal timber sales to fund a portion of their budgets. The link between schools, counties, and federal land management was especially strong when logging of old-growth forests produced bountiful revenues for many rural counties and school districts. However, that linkage has turned from a benefit to a liability for counties due to the precipitous decline in timber production from federal lands during the 1990s.
