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Politicians leap into action — blaming each other over property tax debacle – Daily Montanan [1]

['More From Author', 'July', 'George Ochenski']

Date: 2023-07-14  

You can’t make this stuff up.

The recent property reappraisals sweeping across Montana have left residents in various stages of extreme shock, concern, and wondering if they’ll be able to afford to live in their own homes. But never fear, fellow Montanans! The politicians are coming to homeowners’ rescue by — wait for it — blaming each other for a totally predictable crisis they neglected to address.

It’s only been two months since Montana’s biennial legislative session adjourned, yet the Democrats are now asking Gov. Greg Gianforte to call legislators back for a special session to deal with the looming property tax revolt.

Predictably, the governor has responded by blaming Democrats for not supporting Republican bills dealing with the unbelievably soaring home and business evaluations that skyrocketed by 45% on average, with many in the 50-67% range.

Someone might want to remind the governor that his Republican Party held a historic supermajority in the legislature and could have passed anything they wanted to deal with property taxes without a single Democratic vote. They did just that on a host of culture war and environmental degradation issues — but I guess that kept them too busy to deal with the very real dilemma now facing Montana’s residents.

Those legislators weren’t too busy, however, to give themselves pay raises — a hefty 74% at that — although the bill was later vetoed by the governor, who apparently figured the quality of their “work product” (aka: the laws we live by) wasn’t worth the extra money.

But rest assured, we are told by any number of local government and state sources, that just because your home is now reappraised at a hellaciously high value, that doesn’t mean your taxes are going to go up by that much. No, no, no. Why that will be up to the local government officials to deal with in how many mills they levy on your property.

Again, you can’t make this up, but the way the Helena City Commission and Lewis and Clark County Commission dealt with the issue is anything but reassuring. To wit, they gave themselves raises — and these are the same people who are supposed to be willing to cut back on the coming tax increases. Nor were the raises minimal. The mayor’s pay went up 36% while commissioners’ pay went up 22%.

As reported for the county: “Most elected officials received a $2,000 annual bump to their base salaries on top of increased longevity pay. The average salary of elected officials in Lewis and Clark County will be $100,475 in fiscal year 2024. The average commissioner salary will be $94,023.” But that’s without the longevity pay, which for the county commission vice chair will be $23,912.

Comparing those numbers to the median per capita income in Montana — a whopping $32,463 in 2023 — doesn’t exactly instill confidence that our local government officials will be lowering our tax bills any time soon.

The trends are clear. As posted by Helena City Commissioner Sean Logan — notably, the only commissioner to vote against their own pay increases — county taxes and assessments went up 209.8% from 2013 to 2022 while city taxes and assessments went up 106.7%. That’s one-third more than the market value increase of 194.7% — which doesn’t count this year’s reappraisal values averaging 45%.

If the past is any indication of the future, Montanans are absolutely right to be worried about what tax burdens the new reappraisals will bring. Meanwhile, our politicians are leaping into action — as usual, by pointing fingers, playing partisan politics and blaming each other for this ongoing property tax debacle.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/07/14/politicians-leap-into-action-blaming-each-other-over-property-tax-debacle/

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