The Montana Department of Revenue sends out the Certified Taxable Values by the first Monday in August. Those values are used by all taxing jurisdictions to calculate their mills. The County had to adopt their budget by September 5th and to also “approve” all the other taxing jurisdictions mills by that same date (first Thursday after the first Tuesday of September). The Clerk & Recorder has to send these to the Montana Department of Revenue (DOR) by September 10th in order to begin processing the property tax bills to be mailed out by the County Treasurer.
In 2022, the City of Great Falls approved Calumet Montana Refining LLC’s application for a new or expanding Industry Tax Benefit pursuant to 15-24-1041 and 15-24-1402. At that time, the Department of Revenue asked the Board of County Commissioners whether it concurred in the taxation benefit granted to Calumet by the City of Great Falls because of the impact the adjusted taxation rate on the City of Great Falls property would have on County mills.
The Board of County Commissioners approved the tax abatement by Resolution, in August of 2022. Calumet Montana Refining, LLC’s had applied for an abatement of less than $300 million.
In August of 2024, the Department of Revenue asked for clarification from both the City of Great Falls and the Board of County Commissioners, how much the total dollar value of the equipment included in the application, was approved by the taxing jurisdictions for abatement. Why this wasn’t brought forward prior to August remains unknown to the author.
The City of Great Falls capped their approved abatement at $50 million of costs of remodeling, construction or expansion. It wasn’t until October 15, 2024, that the Board of County Commissioners approved Resolution #24-48 for the entire, final, improvement cost of $430 million, for the new investment in equipment by Calumet for its Renewable Fuel Conversion Project. There is no reasonable explanation for this delay until October.
Since the abatement created a substantial change in the Montana Renewables taxable value, the DOR had to send notice of the $4+ million decrease. These notices were issued on October 25, 2024 and the impacted jurisdictions had 5 working days from October 25, 2024 to request a revised certification of taxable values from the Department of Revenue.
The GFPS district and the Great Falls Transit District were compelled to recalculate their mills, increasing the number of mills to offset the decrease in taxable value in order to come up with the same tax revenue that their governing boards had already adopted. The Board of County Commissioners made a final amendment to their Resolution #24-38 to adjust the tax mills consistent with this recertification, on November 8, 2024
The end result of this substantial delay in issuing the tax bills is that it also delays the collections by at least a month. Normally the tax revenues due on November 30th means that the Treasurer’s office disburses those collections to the taxing jurisdictions, i.e. the city, the towns, the school districts, and all the other districts that are on the tax bills.
Therefore, if the tax bills go out by the end of November (instead of the end of October), taxpayers have 30 days to pay, or until December 31. The disbursements of collected tax revenue that normally happens in December, won’t be done until sometime in January. This could cause a critical cash flow issue for some of these jurisdictions.
This summation provides an explanation of why your property tax bills are delayed. Please share this information so everyone may prepare to plan ahead.
Rae Grulkowski
Cascade County Commissioner
Author: Staff
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