Montana
Montana Property Tax Task Force delivers recommendations to Gianforte • Daily Montanan
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte told the Property Tax Task Force he convened in January they had performed “a job well done,” praising pieces of the finalized 12-part proposal the task force submitted on Thursday which he said would be “innovative tools” the legislature can start with next session to try to cut down the increased tax burden for homeowners.
The 23-member task force has spent the past seven months discussing and crafting options for bills to shift property tax increases back away from single-home families following the legislature’s failure in 2023 to reduce the residential tax rate from 1.35% to 0.94%, as was recommended by the Department of Revenue in order to keep residential tax income neutral after appraisals largely rose statewide.
“Montanans are really counting on us. This report that you completed will help inform and guide all of us as we head into this next legislative session … to get the job done,” Gianforte told the task force members. “I look forward to working with all of the legislators to implement many of these ideas the task force has recommended, working together.”
While the task force’s recommendations will carry weight in the Capitol come next January’s session should Gianforte win re-election and Republicans keep hold of both chambers, they will compete with proposals already outlined by legislative Democrats, and Gianforte’s Democratic opponent also unveiled an initial property tax strategy of his own Thursday in the event he wins the governor’s race.
A poll of Montanans released Thursday by Middle Fork Strategies found property taxes, the cost of living and housing were among the biggest issues they wanted the governor and legislature to focus on next year and of greatest concern to them.
The Daily Montanan detailed the full package of task force proposals earlier this month based on the task force’s final report, and the report released Thursday contains few changes.
The centerpiece of proposed legislation is a homestead, “agstead,” and “comstead” exemption that the task force says would cut taxes by at least 15% for about 345,000 homeowners and those who own long-term rentals, as well as for about 32,000 business owners. “Agstead” refers to agricultural land and “comstead” to commercial property.
The homestead exemptions would cut the tax rate for primary residences and long-term rentals worth up to a little more than $1 million to 1.1% instead of the current 1.35%, while homes worth more than that, as well as short-term rentals and second or subsequent homes would see a tax rate of 1.9%.
Commercial properties up to six times the median value, about $2 million, would get a 1.5% tax rate under the proposals, while properties worth more than that would pay 2.1%, but even properties worth $10 million would see a minimal estimated tax increase.
“The Bill Gates, the Tom Bradys, the Justin Timberlakes, there’s a list of those that are here. We’re glad they’re here, but they don’t participate in the provision of income tax, but they benefit from those services,” Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, said in an interview. “So, this model at least brings them to the table to help them pay.”
The homestead exemption in particular curried Gianforte’s favor.
“For my part, I firmly believe that we should move ahead with a homestead exemption to give a preference to Montana residents on a primary home. That’ll provide good, long-term relief,” Gianforte said. “It will also ensure that out-of-staters that don’t live here, don’t pay income taxes here, and own second homes here pay their fair share – not only for our schools, but law enforcement, roads and bridges, emergency response – and I’m glad that the task force included that as one of the recommendations.”
He added that the additional proposals from the task force’s other two subcommittees, focused on education and local government, had laid out “other tools that we have in our box.”
Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton, outlined the education subcommittee’s proposal to move school district-based levies to a countywide levy, which he said would narrow the range of mills levied across the state’s districts and reduce levied mills in 7-of-10 districts in Montana.
Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, discussed the local government subcommittee’s proposal to change mill levy ballot language to use dollar amounts instead of mills, so the amount of money raised by levies does not change as property values increase.
“This will basically allow them to focus on how much money they need for a project; it will allow them to continue to grow over inflation, but it won’t allow for a big windfall. And it will keep property taxes more stable for voters and taxpayers across the state,” Hertz said.
He said in an interview after the meeting that he believes the task force’s homestead exemption is a better version of the one proposed by Democrats, that he believes some proposals to sunset mill levies and put a higher approval threshold in place on voted levies will still allow taxpayers to “make the right choices,” and that there will be plenty of back-and-forth between competing interests when the bills come to the floor early next year.
“Unfortunately, there’s always a lot more lobbyists up here in Helena when the session’s going on than there are local taxpayers. So, we always get down to what’s the best decision. But I would really encourage local taxpayers to get involved in the legislative session,” Hertz said.
Gianforte said the report was full of “innovative ideas” and that he was “sure we will implement them.” He praised the task force and also mentioned that the second round of homeowner rebates is now available for people to apply.
“I’m sure this work of the task force has delivered concrete and specific strategies to address rising property taxes; I want to thank everybody for the work,” Gianforte said. “This is really a job well done. Each member has demonstrated they are committed to arresting the growth of property taxes, and particularly for Montanans and their primary residence.”
Busse wants to cut residential rate from 1.35% to 0.94%
Gianforte’s Democratic opponent in November, Ryan Busse, unveiled what he called an initial step for his plan to tackle property tax increases and housing affordability issues about two hours later.
That initial plan is simply to lower the residential tax assessment rate to 0.94% across the board, as was recommended by the Department of Revenue in late 2022, which lawmakers led by a Republican supermajority then failed to do.
“The previous four governors of Montana have faced similar situations and have reacted, I think, very responsibly and have undertaken the basic tenets of our tax plan, which is reduce the tax rate so that homeowners are not slammed with increased tax rates or tax bills, and that large industry is not given, in effect, a big tax break,” Busse said in a digital news conference alongside running mate Raph Graybill and former Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Schweitzer said he believed the Gianforte administration and Republican legislature did not lower the tax rate on purpose so it could collect another $200+ million while providing tax breaks to large corporations with the budget surplus. And while he said there were some “decent ideas” coming out of the task force, lowering the tax rate was the easiest and quickest fix that could have been accomplished without ever convening one.
Asked what else he and Graybill were working on to address Montana’s housing affordability crisis, the two said they were working on proposals but did not have a specific list ready because they wanted to focus on the task force’s announcement.
“So, I think we are open in the long term to conversations about fourth-home billionaires like Gianforte paying their fair share. I think we’re open to conversations about homestead exemption and other ways to make the tax burden more fair on people who live in Montana and call it home,” Graybill said. “But the first thing we have to do is fix that initial decision that his new plan still doesn’t do.”
Legislative Democrats also proposed in July a $230 million package of property tax proposals that include a homestead-comstead exemption that would apply to lower and middle-valued homes and businesses; a tiered tax rate that would favor lower-valued properties; and a housing fairness tax credit that could extend to renters, which they say would put more of the tax burden onto wealthier homeowners and large businesses and provide more relief for average Montanans in the long term.
“Our plan lowers costs for Montana’s workers, families, and retirees so that they have the freedom to stay in their own homes,” Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, of Belgrade, and Rep. Jonathan Karlen, of Missoula, said in a statement Thursday. “Someone living in a middle-class home shouldn’t be paying the same tax rate as someone who lives in a mansion.”
PropertyTaxTaskForce_FINALREPORT_OF_THE_GOVERNORS_PROPERTY_TAX_TASK_FORCE
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Mobile home residents in Bozeman, Montana, say they’re being forced to choose between paying rent and paying medical costs.Courtesy of Jered McCafferty
35-year-old Benjamin Moore has lived in Mountain Meadows Mobile Home Park, outside Bozeman, Montana, since he was 17. This month, for the first time, he’s withholding his rent.
On May 1, Moore received a rent bill for $947, up 11 percent from the month before, and the second hike in nine months—the product of the park’s sale to an undisclosed buyer.
Moore hung a sign on his trailer that says “RENT STRIKE.” He and his neighbors in Mountain Meadows and nearby King Arthur Park, organized with the citywide group Bozeman Tenants United, are collectively withholding over $50,000 a month from their landlord.
Historically, trailer parks have been a relatively affordable housing option—a third of trailer park residents in America live below the poverty line. But on average, their cost of living has risen 45 percent over the past decade. By unionizing, the Bozeman trailer park tenants believe they might be able to fight the most recent rent hike—especially given the state of their housing.
For years, tenants say, the maintenance hasn’t been attended to: tree limbs hang perilously over trailers, and water shutoffs are a regular occurrence. “I cannot recall a time in the past 20 years where we had three straight months of water and power working all day, every day,” Moore said.
Shauna Thompson, another resident, calls the water “atrocious…like a Milky Way, like you’re drinking skim milk. It’s very nasty and turned off all the time, without any notice.” And tenants allege that they’ve experienced retribution for maintenance requests, punitive eviction attempts, and unsafe conditions.
“It’s really hard on people here,” Moore said. Some residents are “already paying their entire Social Security check for rent. It’s a very poor neighborhood. We’ve got old folks. We’ve got young families. We’ve got working-class people who can’t afford anything else.”
For the past four decades, a group called Oakland Properties has owned both trailer parks. When they learned about the sale, tenants were scared that their parks would be bulldozed, or that their rent would be increased even further, forcing them to move.
The tenants attempted to buy the parks themselves, but were decisively outbid. The winning bidder demanded an NDA. The transaction should be finalized next month, park owner Gary Oakland said, but residents still don’t know who’s going to own the land they live on.
This month’s rent hike, Oakland acknowledged, was “part and parcel” of the sale. But for tenants, it’s a catastrophe. On top of the $947 lot rent—more than double the national average—many residents also pay off home loans on their trailers, as well as insurance and utilities costs.
Oakland calls claims of broken utilities “nonsense”: “If it was such a bad place to live, why would the homes be selling for such high dollars?” he said. The rent strike, Oakland points out, is “just a group of people not paying their rent.”
Some people are rationing their medication to make ends meet, Moore said. “There’s one person who canceled Life Alert. It’s either Life Alert or rent, and if you don’t pay rent, they evict you and throw you in the streets.”
Tenant organizers across the nation have found a foothold in recent years organizing against individual landlords, and Bozeman’s tenant union, situated in one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, is no exception. Tenant unions from Los Angeles to Kansas City to New York have organized to win rent freezes, maintenance, and security in their homes.
Mobile home parks—increasingly private-equity-owned and uniquely at-risk in the face of climate disasters—are organizing, too: a group of trailer park residents in Columbia, Missouri, unionized in February. In Montana, as Rebecca Burns recently wrote for In These Times, mobile homes were already once a site of tenant organizing: buoyed by the state’s miners unions, the first Bozeman-area mobile home tenants’ union won an agreement with their landlord in 1978.
Oakland says park residents “have been terrorized by the union,” and plans to evict the strikers. The strikers say they’ve retained a lawyer and will fight to stay in their homes.
“I wish none of this was happening,” Moore said. “Your utilities should work. Your place should be safe. You should be able to get in and out of it. These are the absolute basics, and they just haven’t kept them up. And if you call them on it, they threaten you.”
MISSOULA, Mt. — Karsen Beitz arrived at Montana with no scholarship offers, one remaining walk-on spot and no guarantee that his track career would last.
Now, the former Sentinel High School standout is one of the fastest athletes in Montana history.
Beitz, a Missoula native and junior sprinter for the Grizzlies, has turned an unlikely college opportunity into a record-setting career. He owns Montana’s 100-meter and 200-meter program records and enters next week’s Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships as one of the top sprinters in the league.
Coming out of high school, Beitz was a football and track athlete without a Division I offer.
“I was upset about it,” Beitz said. “But at the same time, I was fine with just going to college and living a normal college life.”
That changed after conversations between Sentinel coach Dylan Reynolds and Montana coach Doug Fraley.
“You may not think he’s a D-I prospect based on his times,” Reynolds told Fraley, “but I’m just telling you, if he gets in the right program, he’s going to be a D-I runner.”
Fraley had one walk-on spot left on his roster. He brought Beitz into his office, talked with him and decided to take a chance.
“I liked him. We had a good conversation, so I decided to give him the last walk-on spot,” Fraley said. “I’m sure glad I did.”
Beitz became a Division I athlete in his hometown, but his first goal was modest. He wanted to prove he belonged and earn a scholarship.
He did that quickly.
As a freshman, Beitz placed at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships and helped Montana’s 4×100-meter relay reach the podium with a school-record performance.
“There was no doubt he earned that scholarship,” Fraley said.
Beitz continued to climb in 2025. He placed second in the 200 meters at the Big Sky indoor meet, but a hamstring injury kept him out of the outdoor championships.
“It sucked to deal with,” Beitz said. “But I’m young and still had two years left, so I shifted my mindset to how I could come out these next two years.”
He has not looked back.
Beitz won the 200 meters at the 2026 Big Sky indoor championships, the first individual conference title of his track career. His time of 21.09 seconds edged Idaho State’s Alex Conner by one-hundredth of a second.
“I think the best part about it was seeing how happy Doug was,” Beitz said. “He was jumping up and down, gave me a big hug. After last year, I knew what I was capable of, so to go out there and do it was amazing.”
Then came the outdoor season.
In April, Beitz broke Montana’s 58-year-old 200-meter record, running 20.55 seconds at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate in Long Beach, California. The previous record had stood since 1968.
Two weeks later, he added the school’s wind-legal 100-meter record, running 10.25 seconds at the Bengal Invitational in Pocatello, Idaho. Which broke a 44-year-old program record and gave Beitz both sprint marks.
“He’s a really competitive guy, and he wants to be the best in the Big Sky,” Fraley said.
The records have not left Beitz satisfied. They have made him hungrier.
“You have all these goals and numbers in your mind,” Beitz said. “Then once you hit those numbers, you’re not satisfied. There’s just more numbers to chase.”
The next chase begins at the Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 13-16 in Portland, Oregon.
After college, Beitz hopes to follow his mother’s footsteps and become a pharmacist. Maybe even the world’s fastest pharmacist.
“If I’m running around the hospital talking to doctors,” Beitz said, “I’ll do it pretty fast.”
From a walk-on few people noticed to a conference champion and school-record holder, Beitz has become Montana’s fastest man — and he is not done running.
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