Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon’s congressional delegation has tried and failed several times now to renew what's known as county payments. 

That's a program that has been funneling more than $200 million a year to county governments in rural America, but most of it comes to Oregon.

The money was meant to offset a decline in revenue from timber harvests -- because the counties used to get a cut of the money from logging done on federal lands within their boundaries.

The loss of the money has led to widespread cutbacks in services in Oregon’s timber-dependent counties. 

Gov. Ted Kulongoski set up a task force to look at ways to handle what’s being called a crisis in one-third of the state’s counties.  And Monday he received a report from that panel.  Before reviewing the report, the Governor issued a reality check.

Ted Kulongoski:  “If anyone thinks that there’s a single answer to this, that there’s some magic solution that’s going to correct all of it, it’s not true.  This is going to take multiple decisions, multiple choices by local governments, by the state.”

Salem correspondent Chris Lehman was there this morning when the governor talked about the report, and joins us now.