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Christmas came early for me this year — actually on Halloween — when I persuaded the Montana Department of Revenue to share a treasure trove of property tax data, more than 800 megabytes worth of spreadsheets detailing the 900,000-plus properties on the state’s tax rolls.
Property taxes have, of course, recently become one of Montana’s scariest gifts as years of extraordinary growth of home prices manifested on reappraisal notices this summer. (Current data indicates that the median residential property value in Montana rose by about 40% in two years.)
How precisely that increase would translate into tax bills remained an open question even as the state’s politicians spent much of the summer trading social media posts, op-ed columns and lawsuits on the issue. Homeowners, landlords and businesses got answers specific to their own properties as county treasurers mailed out tax bills late this fall, but it’s remained less clear how individual bills fit into the broader picture of what has anecdotally sounded like a seismic tax shift.
Which is where all that data comes in. It details the tax values and millage rates applicable to Montana properties for 2022 and 2023, making it possible to estimate tax bills and analyze how those bills have changed parcel by parcel. I’ve spent much of the last month working to translate that data into a story we published this week, programming computer analysis scripts, squinting at outputs and calling tax experts to check that what I’ve found in the data reflects reality.
One thing I found didn’t surprise me — residential taxes are up this year, by 21% on median. Another thing did: Some big industrial and utility taxpayers, companies like NorthWestern Energy and Charter Communications, are actually paying millions of dollars less this year than last. As I’ve tabulated the figures, industrial tax bills statewide are down $52.9 million this year while residential taxes are up $213 million.
Combined with higher state and local collections — about $253 million more statewide in 2023 than in 2022 — the contours of this year’s historic shift start to come into empirical focus.
You can slice and dice the data many different ways (I did), but the basic takeaway remains the same: The sum total of how Montana’s tax system is working has this year placed hundreds of millions of dollars of additional burden for the costs of running schools, law enforcement and fire departments onto the types of properties where people live.
Of course, there’s some nuance to the tax data too — particularly when you break things down county by county (as we do with a series of maps included with the story). Taxpayers and communities in different parts of the state are often in very different positions, a fact that is, I suspect, going to prove inconvenient for anyone who thinks it would be easy to recalibrate the tax system with simple fixes.
There is of course much, much more to say about taxes (I have a list of potential stories as long as my arm). If you have questions, or comments or news tips, I’d love to hear them at [email protected] or [email protected].
READ MORE: Montana homeowners see higher property taxes as some big businesses pay less
—Eric Dietrich, Deputy Editor
Verbatim 💬
“I think the main thing here is [that] being unsheltered, being homeless, being considered transient is not illegal. Just because you don’t have a house doesn’t mean you’re a criminal, and that’s the way we treat it. Now if you’re camping in the park, there’s an ordinance saying that you can’t, but we have to work with those folks because they don’t have other places to go.”
—Helena Police Chief Brett Petty, describing how the department handles citizen complaints about the presence of homeless people in Helena parks.
READ MORE FROM MTFP LOCAL: Helena not immune from homelessness, urban camping concerns.
Hot Potato 🥔
At least one Montana judge has sought to creatively apply his legal authority to increase pressure on state officials to address “excessive, chronic wait lists” at the adult psychiatric hospital in Warm Springs. The results of the strategy have, at least so far, been mixed.
For months, dozens of mentally ill criminal defendants — “sixty-four human beings,” in the recent words of Cascade County District Court Judge John Parker — have been held in jails around the state, waiting for admission to the Montana State Hospital so a single on-staff psychiatrist can evaluate their fitness to stand trial. In the specific case before Parker, defendant William John Anderson had waited four months for that evaluation after being detained in March on charges related to assaulting a police officer.
Over that course of time, officials from the state health department and Montana State Hospital repeatedly appeared before Parker to explain that, in short, they’re working on addressing the backlog as quickly as possible. The judge was, apparently, unpersuaded. Even after Anderson’s October admission to the hospital, Parker ordered the state health department to produce a written report, “no more than twenty pages double-spaced,” explaining its real-time efforts to reduce the waitlist. He also ordered the department to submit the same report to two legislative committees and Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office.
“The unrefuted testimony from the Department and the Department’s oral argument make it clear that the legislature’s intent in enacting the fitness to proceed statutes will remain thwarted without further action,” Parker wrote in a November order. “Even in a government of separated powers, the judicial branch has Constitutional and statutory authority to take certain actions, particularly in this situation where fundamental rights are at stake and the proper operation of critical statutes is being continually disrupted by previously-identified administrative problems.”
The state health department appealed the ruling to the Montana Supreme Court, which, on Tuesday, overruled Parker’s order in a 5-0 decision. The justices wrote that, because the state health department is not technically a party to Anderson’s lawsuit, “the court has no authority to act upon the substance of any report produced by [the department]” or force the state to take “corrective action.”
But, because the state health department didn’t receive word from the Supreme Court about its appeal before Parker’s deadline, its leadership ultimately decided to produce the report as directed.
In the Nov. 17 report, department director Charlie Brereton described the hospital’s waitlist issues as “convoluted and longstanding, ultimately rooted in the neglect of proper resource allocation by past legislatures and gross mismanagement by prior administrations.” In the short term, Brereton wrote, the department is pursuing a contract with Washington University in St. Louis and the University of California, San Francisco, to “retain forensic psychiatrists.” He said it has also decided to boost its hourly rate for contracted providers and is working to recruit additional forensic psychiatrists as state employees.
Brereton also noted that longer-term efforts to fix the struggling evaluation system are underway. Among them, the Behavioral Health System for Future Generations Commission, of which Brereton is vice chair, has recommended up to $7.5 million be given to counties for a one-year pilot program to pay for court-ordered evaluations at the community level. That funding has not yet been approved by the governor.
Judge Parker on Friday declined to comment on the broader issue of the hospital’s waitlist, citing numerous pending cases before him that deal with that topic. In his November ruling, however, the judge made clear that the ordered report was partly intended to kickstart conversation among state officials and lawmakers “who may not fully appreciate the magnitude of the crisis.”
“The criminal defendants have a Constitutional right to [a] speedy trial. The State has a duty to protect citizens from crime and properly does not want criminal prosecutions dismissed,” Parker wrote. “For the incarcerated person awaiting transport, there is nothing abstract about it.”
—Mara Silvers, Reporter
Viewshed 🌄
The rotunda of the Montana State Capitol shortly after the official lighting of the 2023 Capitol Christmas Tree on Dec. 4. The 28-foot-tall Douglas fir, harvested off state trust land near Lubrecht Forest, is on display through December.
—Eric Dietrich, Deputy Editor
Following the Law ⚖️
The state late last week asked the Montana Supreme Court to hit pause on a lower court order directing the state to analyze greenhouse gas impacts in its permitting process.
At issue is Held v. Montana, a landmark climate lawsuit filed by 16 young plaintiffs who claim the state’s permissive approach to fossil fuel permitting has harmed their constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment.” After a 7-day bench trial in June, Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and struck down a measure barring the state from considering greenhouse gasses in permitting decisions. She also prohibited the state from “acting in accordance with the statutes declared unconstitutional.”
The state appealed the final order — and other orders Seeley issued during legal proceedings — to the Montana Supreme Court.
In a Dec. 1 filing, Dale Schowengerdt, an attorney representing the state, argued that moving forward with greenhouse gas analyses before the appeal is decided would force the state to prepare a “slipshod analysis.” That could expose state agencies to lawsuits by parties claiming they acted arbitrarily and capriciously as a result of rushing to comply with Seeley’s order, he wrote.
In the 17-page motion for a stay, Schowengerdt also argued that the district court exceeded its authority and “stretched the judicial power beyond recognized limits.”
An attorney for the nonprofit group that represented the plaintiffs described the motion as the state’s “latest attempt to avoid complying with Judge Seeley’s Aug. 14 order.”
Referencing language from Seeley’s ruling, Our Children’s Trust attorney Nate Bellinger argued that plaintiffs are already experiencing “substantial injuries and infringement of their constitutional rights” and these injuries will only worsen the longer the state ignores climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Montana should be working to fix these problems, not asking for permission to violate the constitutional rights of Montana’s youth,” Bellinger wrote in an email to MTFP.
— Amanda Eggert, Reporter
Campaign Dispatch 
Montana Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale kind-of-almost-not-quite announced his long-rumored 2024 bid for U.S. Senate Wednesday, stating in a video posted to social media that he’s “heavily considering running” for the seat currently held by Democrat Jon Tester.
“Over the last several months, I’ve been humbled by the overwhelming support I’ve received from Montanans to challenge Jon Tester, including dozens of state legislators that I’ve had the pleasure of serving with, and the Montana speaker of the House, and the Senate president,” Rosendale said in the video. “While I was truly honored and privileged to represent the people of eastern Montana in Congress, it is difficult for me to stand by and allow Mitch McConnell and the uniparty to sell our country short and attempt to select our next senator.”
Tester, the only Democrat in Montana with a statewide constituency, is a three-term incumbent and a top target of national Republicans in their effort to win a majority in the U.S. Senate this election cycle. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, chaired by Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, has tapped Belgrade entrepreneur and political novice Tim Sheehy for the task of taking on Tester.
But many Republicans in both Washington, D.C., and Montana, including several Montana state legislators, have pushed Rosendale, a GOP hardliner affiliated with the House Freedom Caucus, to run.
On Our Radar 
Amanda — News this week that Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority secured a $500,000 federal grant to explore the feasibility of restored passenger train service in southern Montana brought to mind an interesting, accessible segment Montana PBS produced earlier this year on the challenges facing passenger rail proponents.
Alex — The Guardian published a troubling dispatch this week from the Antarctic, a place that’s long captivated my attention. Ecologists report that avian flu is spreading in the region and fear that recent mass deaths among elephant seals are merely the beginning of what could become an ecological disaster at the bottom of the world.
Arren — Someone (Eric) showed me this federal farm subsidy database this week, and I haven’t been able to stop playing with it. You can look up how much money your favorite Montana farms (or the farms owned by various politicians, favorite or otherwise) have received going back decades. Here, for example, is Jon and Sharla Tester’s T-Bone Farms.
Brad — I’ve been as giddy as any Montanan at the Oscar buzz around actress Lily Gladstone and her star-making performance in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” but hype around the film’s ostensibly conscientious respect for the Native point of view has landed uneasily with me, for reasons I haven’t been able to articulate. Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray articulates it quite carefully in this recent column in the new Missoula outlet The Pulp.
Nick — Growing up in the late ’60s and early ’70s there were two shows that were must-watch TV in our household: “60 Minutes” and “All in the Family,” unless, of course, dad was watching the Watergate hearings. Each of those, I see now, was instrumental to my upbringing, and so I thoroughly appreciated the fine tribute to Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer, in the Washington Post after his death this week.
Mara — My household is gearing up for a mega holiday cookie swap among friends and neighbors later this month. The inspiration (albeit not difficult to find when it comes to festive sugar productions) came from this epic Bon Appétit guide. Let the baking commence.
Eric — Are the real-world odds when you flip a coin really 50-50? These scientists tallied more than 350,000 hand-conducted coin tosses in their spare time to check. (Spoiler: No.)
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