Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
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Montana Department of Revenue staff told a legislative committee Monday that next year’s reappraisal cycle could produce a partial repeat of last year’s jarring tax spike as the state’s surging real estate market continues to translate into higher residential taxes. The department expects the market value of the average Montana residential property to be reappraised at 21% higher when it completes next year’s reappraisal cycle. A staff economist said Monday that if the Legislature doesn’t rebalance state tax statutes, the higher values wi...
Educating Montana’s youth is one of the state’s most costly endeavors and a responsibility shouldered by citizens of all stripes: teachers, parents, voters, taxpayers. It’s a promise baked into the very fabric of the state Constitution, which vows to develop the full educational potential of each citizen. How Montana tries to meet that lofty goal, financially speaking, is a constant point of policy wrangling. The intricacies of school budgeting are also a perennial source of confusion for Monta...
HELENA — Montana’s 2020 election came to its anticlimactic-but-official end in a mostly empty hearing room Monday as the state Board of Canvassers met in the state Capitol to certify official vote counts. The three-person board, composed of staffers representing Montana’s attorney general, superintendent of public instruction and state auditor, spent more than six hours reviewing vote tallies county by county, guided by a handful of staff from the Montana secretary of state’s office and observed by an audience of two reporters. Secretary of Sta...
HELENA - Gov. Steve Bullock issued a directive Thursday giving Montana counties the option of shifting to all-mail ballots for the November general election as they did for the June primary, saying the order gives local election authorities a way to prevent COVID-19 from spreading among election-day crowds at polling places. The governor, who will be on the fall ballot as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said he is issuing the order at the request of the association representing...
HELENA - An advisory council appointed to help Gov. Steve Bullock decide how to spend $1.25 billion in coronavirus relief money from the federal government submitted its formal recommendations Friday, laying out a framework focused on providing additional support to pandemic-disrupted businesses and nonprofits. "It's critical, certainly, that this funding reaches all corners of our state, considers really all the sectors of industry and the economy," Bullock said. Task force chair Larry Simkins...
HELENA - Gov. Steve Bullock unveiled the state's official plan April 22 for gradually shifting Montana out of anti-coronavirus emergency mode, specifying dates for scaling back his stay-at-home directive and reopening some non-essential businesses that have been shuttered in an effort to slow the outbreak. In making the announcement, Bullock touted the state's anti-coronavirus efforts, saying aggressive government action, dogged public health work and individual Montanans' commitment to social...
HELENA - Jim Murphy, Montana's chief epidemiologist, has heard the same stories most everyone in the state has heard about residents who've made unsuccessful attempts to get themselves tested for COVID-19. But even as national headlines worry over testing backlogs in some parts of the country, he says testing constraints haven't hampered Montana's coronavirus response. "I'm not aware of what I would consider valid access issues," Murphy said in an April 7 interview. "I think the providers in...
Editor's Note: This story was originally published by Montana Free Press. For more information, please visit www.montanafreepress.org HELENA - Four days after President Donald Trump signed the largest emergency spending measure in U.S. history, the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, Montana-based stimulus watchers are waiting with bated breath for details about how the act will bring aid to bear on the state economy. While the CARES Act responds to the COVID-19...
