Federal lands cover huge portions of SD4. Park County. Lake County. Chaffee, Custer, Fremont, Teller — the federal footprint here is among the highest in Colorado. Those acres can't be taxed by counties. But the roads still need maintenance. The fire response still has to happen. The infrastructure still has to function. The bill still comes due.

Federal PILT payments — Payments In Lieu of Taxes — are supposed to compensate counties for that gap. They're written into law specifically because Congress recognized the unfairness of forcing counties to maintain federal land at local expense. But PILT is subject to Washington's annual budget battles. Some years it gets paid. Some years it doesn't. The work doesn't stop either way. SD4 counties absorb the difference.

Colorado should not be held hostage to Washington's dysfunction. SD4 has carried the federal load for too long. The state has the tools to backstop counties when Congress fumbles — and the obligation to use them when SD4 communities are paying the price.

PILT stands for Payments In Lieu of Taxes. The federal government owns vast acreage in SD4 — national forest, BLM land, monument designations, military installations. None of those acres can be taxed by counties. But counties still maintain the roads that cross them, send firefighters when they burn, and respond when emergencies happen on them. PILT was created to compensate counties for the tax revenue lost to federal ownership. The math was always supposed to balance.

It doesn't always balance. PILT is appropriated annually, which means it depends on whatever Congress is fighting about that year. When payments come in short — and they have, repeatedly, over the past decade — the work doesn't stop. Counties still maintain the roads. Fire crews still respond. The local tax base just absorbs more of the cost than it was supposed to. Property taxes climb. Services stretch thin. SD4 communities pay for Washington's failure to deliver on a commitment that's been law since 1976.

A state PILT backstop tied to a 15% shortfall threshold isn't radical. It's acknowledging that federal commitments shouldn't be carried by the smallest, poorest counties when Congress decides to break them. Severance tax revenue — Colorado's tax on mineral extraction — is the natural funding source. It already comes from activity on the same federal lands the backstop protects. The mechanism is clean. The math works. The will is what's missing. SD4 deserves a senator who has it.