Refinery’s tax protests leave Great Falls’ schools in a budgetary bind 

To avoid a budget shortfall, Great Falls Public Schools will likely request this year’s tax proceeds from its largest taxpayer at the risk of paying some of the money back later.

Calumet, which operates a petroleum refinery and biorefinery in Great Falls, challenged its state property valuations for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 tax years. As a result, the company has paid at least $6.5 million in property taxes in protest. That money is held in escrow until the company’s appeals play out with the Montana Department of Revenue.

The money would have otherwise gone to local governments, but in the last three years, governments have had to budget around that revenue. In the case of the Great Falls Public Schools, officials have little choice but to request the funds to avoid a budget deficit.

“We need to be able to access the money for our budget,” GFPS Superintendent Heather Hoyer told Montana Free Press this week. “We need to make sure we can balance our budget and fulfill our financial requirements.”

Last year, GFPS trustees approved a plan to access $1.2 million in protested Calumet tax proceeds to balance its budget. Trustees postponed a vote on this action earlier this week while they waited to find out the specific amount of tax revenue to request. According to the Cascade County Treasurer’s Office, the school’s share of the protested taxes this year is $675,340.

If a potential settlement reduces Calumet’s tax liability for those years, the available tax revenue is then released to local governments. An entity that already requested the full, original tax revenue, such as the school district, would have to levy special taxes on everyone to pay the difference back to Calumet.

If that happens, it would be a repeat of 2020 when Calumet settled a tax protest case with the revenue department for 2017 through 2019. The settlement reduced the company’s taxes for those years from $16.9 million to about $11 million. GFPS, which had requested access to the tax revenue for two years while the case was ongoing, had to levy special taxes to collect $1.9 million to repay its share of the difference.

Calumet now has two divisions at the Great Falls site. Montana Renewables, created in 2022, is a biorefinery operation that is now larger than Calumet Montana Refining, which is the traditional petroleum refinery. The two divisions are separately taxed, and the current tax appeal cases relate only to Calumet Montana Refining’s valuations and property tax payments.

Calumet initiated the first of its current tax appeal cases in late 2023. The company has argued that the petroleum refinery was worth as little as $100 million in 2024, when a state appraisal initially valued the plant at $224 million. Calumet has made similar objections to the state’s valuations for 2022 and 2023. 

The three cases are awaiting hearings before the Montana Tax Appeal Board. The hearings are scheduled for May 2026, though a settlement can be reached at any time.

Tax protests of this size put local governments in tough spots because millions of dollars of expected revenue aren’t distributed except through special requests. The city of Great Falls has opted to budget around those gaps while the appeal cases drag on. At a recent budget meeting, Finance Director Melissa Kinzler said that the city missed out on $1.1 million in 2024 due to the protest and $662,000 for the 2025 budget. The city is building its 2026 budget without the expectation of that revenue.

“It’s frustrating for the city of Great Falls, because we have to hold back and wait,” City Commissioner Rick Tryon told MTFP.

The budget frustration is tempered by the idea that even without the protested tax revenue, Calumet and subsidiary Montana Renewables are still major taxpayers with multi-million-dollar property tax bills. And the appeal process Calumet is going through is available to any property owner, even if the company’s impact is much larger. City Commissioner Joe McKenney has repeated in public meetings that Calumet pays property taxes equivalent to 4,000 residential homes. 

Local officials who spoke with MTFP often weighed the budget implications with Calumet’s status as a major taxpayer and employer.

“That’s a tough balance,” Tryon said. “The latest protest is a concern. We just want to be good neighbors. Calumet provides a lot of jobs in Great Falls — pretty good jobs.”

Local governments have dealt with Calumet tax protests in six of the last eight years, and it’s not immediately clear how the state revenue department and Calumet arrive at drastically different valuations for the Great Falls site. 

For example, the state appraisal in 2023 valued the refinery at $299 million. The Cascade County Tax Appeal Board upheld that valuation in a November 2023 hearing, according to case documents. Calumet appealed that decision to the state-level tax appeal board, arguing that its plant is worth $115 million — little more than a third of the state’s appraisal. That dispute is one of the ongoing cases.

Calumet, through a spokesperson, said in a statement that property valuation for complex industrial sites like the Great Falls refinery can be complicated. The revenue department’s standard appraisal methods have broad applicability but may not be suited for a unique refinery, the company maintains.

“This mismatch can lead to recurring disconnects between DOR valuations and actual asset values, prompting protests and appeals,” Calumet said in its statement. “While we respect the DOR’s role and the framework they operate within, we believe there’s room for improvement in how complex industrial properties are assessed. A more tailored approach could help ensure fairer outcomes and reduce the need for frequent appeals.”

A spokesperson for the Montana Department of Revenue declined to comment, citing pending litigation with the tax appeal cases before the Montana Tax Appeal Board.

The appeal cases are treated like court cases and require attorneys to resolve. For Calumet, one of its lead attorneys is Kim Beatty. Her husband, Brendan Beatty, is the director of the Montana Department of Revenue.

The department appears to have taken steps to avoid potential conflicts. In October, the department shared with MTFP five letters from Director Beatty that disclosed his wife’s role in tax appeals and delegated oversight of Calumet-related matters to a deputy, Scott Mendenhall.

Kim Beatty works for Browning, Kaleczyc, Berry and Hoven, a statewide law firm whose roster of attorneys includes Steve Fitzpatrick. He is a Great Falls legislator who has sponsored successful bills that gave tax benefits specifically tailored to Calumet and Montana Renewables.

Calumet Montana Refining and Montana Renewables together receive four kinds of tax breaks, with one additional still under review for Montana Renewables. The company can also benefit from federal biofuel production tax credits, which lawmakers extended with the recent passage of the “big, beautiful bill.”

While three years of tax disputes have reached the level of the Montana Tax Appeal Board, they aren’t the only ways that Calumet has challenged its property valuations. From 2015 to 2024, the company requested “informal” reviews of its property valuations in seven of those nine years, according to filings obtained by MTFP. Montana Renewables has requested these informal reviews each year since it formed in 2022. These are done through forms known as AB-26, which allow taxpayers to give reasons why the state may have made mistakes in its appraisal.

Those reviews can sometimes lead to smaller revisions in taxable value that can also disrupt local government budgeting. Last fall, property tax bills were sent late, and Cascade County had to recertify the year’s mill levies after the revenue department reduced the refinery’s property valuation through an informal review. As a result, taxpayers in the Great Falls Public Schools district picked up the tab for an additional $681,934 that Calumet would have otherwise paid on its own.

In May, Montana Renewables settled another tax dispute case before the Montana Tax Appeal Board. In that case, the biorefinery received a full tax exemption on equipment worth $67 million.

The tax appeal board will consider the three cases related to Calumet Montana Refining together, though it’s not known how long it will take to resolve them.

This story was updated July 23, 2025, to include Great Falls Public Schools’ specific share of the contested taxes. 

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