In some Montana counties, tax appeal boards are hard to fill

Broadwater County is pictured (Upper Missouri Waterkeeper photo)

In some counties across Montana, finding people to fill the Tax Appeal Board can be challenging, and for at least one Broadwater County resident, that’s caused some frustration when it came time to pay her property taxes.

Tax Appeal Boards are required by state law of every county and allow a citizen to appeal their property taxes. They are to be made up of, at minimum, three people appointed by county commissioners. 

Broadwater County recently had one member die and another move, County Commissioner Debi Randolph told the Daily Montanan, and just one member was listed on their website last week.

Randolph said the county has addressed the issue, but not before Broadwater County resident Linde Hoff ran into a situation where she says she was unable to appeal a property tax bill this year.

When Hoff got her property tax bill this year, rooms were added to her residential home that aren’t included in the house, so she and her husband appealed. Hoff, along with her neighbors, are also in a lawsuit against another neighbors regarding junk on the property. 

That’s important because because during that lawsuit regarding junk, Hoff had a private assessor come to her property and found the neighboring property was devaluing theirs. This private assessment was also used to calculate her taxes, she said.

Tax Appeal Boards are supposed to give citizens a voice in their taxes, and in nuanced situations like Hoff’s, can allow for additional information to be presented to the county.

As Cascade County puts it on their website: “The primary purpose of the County Tax Appeal Board is to review the market value assigned by the Department of Revenue and to determine if the taxed property is correctly appraised at 100% market value.”

And if it’s not, that’s when changes to a person’s taxes can be made.

Hoff learned that the Tax Appeal Board wasn’t functioning while trying to go through with the process of filing an appeal. She was shuffled around between Broadwater County and the state, eventually being told to call Lewis and Clark County about the issue. Hoff said she was told to fill out the wrong form by Broadwater County treasurer Melissa Franks. 

Broadwater County didn’t comment directly on Hoff’s situation, but said the tax appeal process is “confusing” and suggested citizens should use an attorney or accountant.

Hoff did call Lewis and Clark County Treasurer Amy Reeves and was told they can’t pull up that information from other counties, so they couldn’t help.

Hoff was also in contact with the state Department of Revenue. But DOR doesn’t “really play a role in the county’s tax appeal boards,” DOR communications director Jason Slead wrote in an email.

DOR sends a letter out and people have 30 days to appeal, which they need to do through a county form referred to as an “8026,” Franks said. If a property owner doesn’t like the response they get from the Department of Revenue, then there’s a separate form a person has to fill out to appeal it to a county tax board.

Hoff filled out the first form and a state employee did come out to their property, but nothing ever seemed to come out of it, she said. She then filled out the second form, was told there would be a call if something was wrong with it, and never heard back about it.

Now, Hoff said, she was told she has no recourse and will have to wait until next year. The new Broadwater County Tax Appeal board needs to be trained, and the county said they would wait until it was closer to a time they’d meet again. Tax Appeal Boards generally meet between July and October.

There is a Montana State Tax Appeal Board, but that’s an independent board separate from DOR, with members appointed by the Governor. That board handles disagreements that haven’t been resolved in a county Tax Appeal Board, though neither Franks nor Randolph appeared to know this during an interview on Friday, something the state clearly says in a video regarding the process.

Hoff said she feels “insulted,” though county officials did meet with her on Friday, she said. Hoff has successfully appealed property taxes before.

“I feel like I’m being ripped off by my government,” Hoff said, adding that someone needs to “take responsibility.”

‘No one wants to take that on’

Board vacancies are not unique to Broadwater County, nor is it limited to county Tax Appeal Boards.

In Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, there are currently only two members of the Tax Appeal board. It’s not for lack of trying — they are looking for someone to fill the position, secretary Jessica Dailey said, but they haven’t been able to do so.

“There’s been a vacancy for quite a while now,” Dailey said. “And I mean, we advertise it in the newspaper every so often, and we just don’t get any bites. It’s almost as if no one wants to take that on.”

And small numbers of board members can also put people in odd situations. In one instance Dailey said, one Tax Appeal Board member had to make the decision on one of the other board members’ taxes. Without any other board members, there was no other option.

“It would have been super helpful if we had another member on the board,” Dailey said.

Some Tax Appeal Boards, though, have no issue filling their ranks. Lake County Tax Appeal Board Secretary Kate Stinger said it’s “probably the easiest board” she’s had to fill.

“I think that’s probably because residents are interested in property taxes and frustrated with rising property taxes and maybe that’s the impact that they can have on that situation,” Stinger told the Daily Montanan.

There has been significant noise on the property tax issue in the Flathead and a lawsuit was filed this week by multiple current and former legislators, including Sen. Greg Hertz, a Polson Republican. Rising property values in one of the most scenic parts of the lower 48 states has been an ongoing issue in the area and second homes in the state are now taxed at a higher rate.

Both Stinger and Dailey said they were seeing significant increases in the number of appeals going through their boards. Franks said she hasn’t seen one since becoming Broadwater County’s treasurer.

Blaine County, meanwhile, recently went through the process of selecting a new Tax Appeal Board member. County Commissioner Miles Hutton said that board wasn’t a huge issue to fill, but others are.

“There’s lots of boards nobody wants to serve on,” Hutton said.

Across the state, many counties have a huge number of appointed boards. In Broadwater County, for example, there’s an airport board, a broadband advisory board, a county compensation board — all intended as a method of citizen engagement.

And if people don’t apply for these positions and serve terms, it doesn’t leave counties with many options.

“We rely on those boards a lot,” Randolph said. “They do a lot of research work for us, and deal with a lot of projects, where we don’t have time to deal with the beginning steps of them, and then they come to us, which is a wonderful community service that they provide.”