Hill County approves MACo intervention in property tax lawsuit

At their weekly business meeting Thursday the Hill County Commission passed a resolution authorizing the Montana Association of Counties to intervene on their behalf in ongoing litigation between the state and counties regarding state education levies.

Gov. Greg Gianforte’s Department of Revenue recently directed the counties to collect the full 95 mills of the state’s school equalization levy, which supports schools in lower income areas, but counties across the state, including Hill County, bucked the governor, instead, voting to collect 79.9 mills earlier this month.

For many years the county has collected 95 mills, but a spike in property valuations has caused the value of those mills to rise dramatically and county commissions throughout Montana, including in Hill County, have argued that the dramatic increase is unsustainable for their citizens and violates state law, which places limits on how quickly local taxes can rise.

The Gianforte administration, as well as a number of education groups, have disputed the counties’ interpretation of the law and have argued that this amendment would result in a deficit for schools, but counties have disputed this.

The matter wasn’t discussed in much detail during Thursday’s meeting, but the resolution said that Hill County would grant their consent to have MACo work on their behalf to obtain a judgment from the Montana Supreme Court affirming their interpretation of state law, as the state has begun litigation against counties who voted for the amendment.

During Thursday’s meeting the commission also heard from Hill County Park Board member Lou Hagener who asked about a meeting held Tuesday regarding the funding of Beaver Creek Park’s new Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge.

He said he is on the committee that deals with that lodge and he was not notified of the meeting, only learning about it through the Havre Daily News.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said all he’d heard about it was an email from Hill County Park Board Chair Jeff Jensen requesting use of the Hill County Courthouse Timmons Room for that time.

The commission also heard from John Perrodin of Northern Engineering & Consulting, who said his organization is working with Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation doing a roadway inventory.

Perrodin said they are using a roadway displacement laser to scan roads and evaluate their structural integrity as well as evaluate gravel in the area to help the reservation create long-term plans for their roads and gravel production.

He said this project will be going for the next few years and he asked the commission if they would be interested in making use of this equipment at any point in the near future.

Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel said he was very interested and Peterson asked if they have access to ground-penetrating radar.

Peterson said something like that would be great for the county when looking for new gravel sources.

Perrodin said they do, and have done some successful tests of the equipment in other states, but the device they have is limited.

He said they run into trouble when trying to scan through dense material, especially clay and this area has a high concentration of volcanic ash clay, so he’s not sure how effective it will be.

Peterson asked if the county could be given a demonstration and Perrodin said yes, he would just need to know when and where the county wanted to do it.