Almost six months after the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to pay out the money, the U.S. House last week finally got around to saying yes and restoring the Secure Rural Schools program, which had paid about $120 million a year to communities hurt by cutbacks in the timber industry.

The legislation authorizes funding to cover the past two years of missed payments. The program had ended when the House failed to take any action on a Senate bill a year ago.

Wrangell will receive about $1.6 million for the two years of lost funding, essentially “backpay” now that Congress has reauthorized the program.

The House passed this year’s version of the legislation on a 399-5 vote on Dec. 9, sending the bill to the president for signature into law.

The vote came after a year-long effort by bipartisan federal lawmakers from western states to restore the funding for their communities.

The money must go out to communities within 45 days after the president signs the legislation, according to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office. “This is mandatory spending,” a staffer said.

After the money is paid out for the two years of missed funding, the communities will receive one more year’s payment by early 2027 — and then the program will stop again unless Congress votes to reauthorize it.

Wrangell received about $800,000 annually under the Secure Rural Schools program in recent years.

“Historically, an overwhelming proportion has gone to schools,” said Borough Manager Mason Villarma, who was in Washington, D.C., last week, lobbying for Wrangell projects with the state’s congressional delegation and federal officials.

In addition to helping fund the school district’s operating budget, the borough assembly has drawn on the account for road projects, to pay back borrowing on general obligation bonds for community improvements, and for capital projects like half-a-million dollars for a new elevator at the high school this year.

Secure Rural Schools, created by Congress in 2000, distributes money to cities, counties and boroughs in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California and other states with federal lands. The aid program was created to compensate communities for lost revenues as the timber industry went into decline.

Since 2020, it has provided $7 billion in payments to more than 700 counties and 4,400 school districts across 40 states and Puerto Rico that have large swaths of federal land within their borders, according to reporting in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

The payments are calculated by the U.S. Forest Service, based on historical timber revenues in the municipalities and other factors. Ketchikan, for example, received about $1.2 million in the last year before payments ended.

Alaska communities received $12.6 million for 2023, before the program ended.

Wrangell’s two years of backpay will go into the borough’s Secure Rural Schools Fund, which held almost $1.8 million in June 2024 but is budgeted to end the fiscal year in June 2026 at just over $200,000 — before the retroactive payments are counted.

The failure of Congress to reauthorize the program squeezed borough finances and was a factor holding down the assembly’s contribution to the district’s operating budget for the 2025-2026 school year.

“It will help us immensely for the budget,” Villarma said Dec. 9, in an interview from Washington.

With the renewed federal aid, he said he has told the schools superintendent that he would work to put together a borough budget with the maximum funding for the district allowed under state law, subject to assembly consideration and approval.

Additional borough funding to the state maximum could provide around an extra $300,000 for the district for the 2026-2027 school year, reducing — but not totally eliminating — the district’s ongoing draw on its reserves to balance its budget.

Alaska’s three-member congressional delegation supported the bill to restore the program: Rep. Nick Begich, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Murkowski.

The Alaska Legislature earlier this year passed by a 56-4 margin a resolution — sponsored by Ketchikan Rep. Jeremy Bynum — calling on Congress to restore the program.

“This is a critical and long-overdue action by Congress,” Bynum said in a prepared statement. “Secure Rural Schools funding is not optional for communities like ours, it is foundational.”

Bynum’s district includes Wrangell.