Just because the U.S. House — after more than a year of doing nothing — finally took time out from its busy days of politics and grandstanding to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools program for communities hurt by the loss of their timber economy doesn’t mean the congressmen and congresswomen deserve a visit from Santa.

Even a lump of coal would be too good for them.

The House failure cost Wrangell about $800,000 in federal funding for last year and about the same for this year, money that would have gone to schools, roads and other community needs.

The Senate, by unanimous consent, reauthorized the program in November 2024, but the House did nothing before it adjourned for the year. House Republican leadership couldn’t even be bothered to call a vote before they went home for the holidays.

The Senate again in June reauthorized the program, again by unanimous consent, figuring maybe the House didn’t get the message the first time. Six months later, on Dec. 9, the House voted 399-5 to go along. With such a lopsided vote, you wonder why the holdup. Maybe the Senate message was caught in an inter-office spam filter.

Or maybe the House was just late turning in its assignment.

The Secure Rural Schools program, administered by the U.S. Forest Service, expired in the fall of 2023, with final payouts made in 2024 totaling more than $232 million to more than 700 counties across the United States and Puerto Rico, with more than $12 million for Alaska.

With last week’s House action, and assuming the president signs the legislation into law, Wrangell and all the other communities will receive their two years of backpay and then one more year of funding before the program stops again, pushing off the next reauthorization fight to the end of 2026.

Late may be better than never, but it’s still irresponsible.

Just like a student who is tardy, House members should make amends for shorting municipal budgets for schools and roads — including Wrangell — for two years.

It’s not realistic to demand that House leadership clean the blackboards, as they’d be hard to find anyway in the world of whiteboards and digital screens. And promising never to do it again would be pointless. No one would believe them.

In honor of Dick Van Dyke, who turned 100 years old on Dec. 13, and who made chimney cleaning a respectful profession in “Mary Poppins” 60 years ago, perhaps a timely punishment for the House would be to clean the chimneys in every school in every district that was short of funding while House members played political games instead of taking votes.

They could even sing while cleaning the chimneys.