94th ANNUAL
CONFERENCE
MONTANA ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES
Lewistown, Montana
The 94TH annual Conference of the Montana Association of Counties opened at 9:00 am. The Lewistown Post of the American Legion presented colors and led the delegates in the Pledge of Allegiance. Rev. Paul Carlson, Lutheran Church, conducted the Invocation. Lewistown City Manager Kevin Myhre welcomed the delegates. Commissioner Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County, responded with gratitude for the hospitality.
President Brooker introduced the head table:
Doug Kaercher, Second Vice
President, Hill County
Bill Kennedy, First Vice
President, Yellowstone County
Gary Fjelstad, Past
President, Rosebud County
Howard Gipe, Urban Representative,
Flathead County
John Prinkki,
Parliamentarian, Carbon County
Dan Watson, Fiscal
Officer, Rosebud County
ROLL CALL
Dan Watson, MACo Fiscal
Officer, Rosebud County
At the call of the roll, 51 of 56 member counties
responded and Watson announced quorum present to conduct business.
MEMORIAL RESOLUTION
Vern Petersen, Host, Fergus
County
The seconded motion to adopt the Memorial Resolution passed by
unanimous consent.
RESOLUTION IN MEMORIAM
WHEREAS,
the members of the Montana Association of Counties, with great sorrow and a
deep sense of loss, wish to remember and honor those members who have been
taken by death since the last annual convention of our Association; and
WHEREAS,
each of these county commissioners has rendered innumerable public services to
his or her respective county, to the State of Montana, and to the people
thereof; and
WHEREAS,
the absence of these persons is keenly felt as a great personal loss to their
families, friends and colleagues,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED by the Montana Association of Counties in convention duly assembled in
Lewistown, Montana, this 22nd day of September 2003, that the Association does
hereby pay tribute to the memory of Commissioners:
John Kerr, Carter County
Magnus Markuson, Carter County
Alvin Mathison, Dawson County
Robert Phipps, Garfield County
Eugene Cowan, Phillips County
Spencer “Ole” Redland, Treasure County
Alvin “Buzz” Galle, Anaconda-Deer Lodge County,
and on behalf of its members and the
citizens of the State of Montana, does hereby express gratitude for their
achievements and contributions to the public good of their counties and to
Montana.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Kathy Alley, former Dawson
County Commissioner, is very ill.
Dawson County Commissioners have a card at the registration table to
sign.
PRESENTATION OF RESOLUTIONS
Mike Murray, Chair, Lewis
and Clark County
“In your packet you should have two resolutions. (See Attachments)
Resolution 2003-1, Utility Rate Energy Crisis
Resolution 2003-2, Exemption to Nepotism.
We were handed this morning Resolution 2003-3, State Land Right of Way.
I will take these three resolutions to the Resolutions Committee tomorrow. The Committee will assign them to the appropriate MACo committees, which will have them ready for Wednesday.
The renovation of our State Capitol in Helena was made possible by counties donating several million dollars in CTEP funding two years ago. If this year you have CTEP funding that you do not intend to use, it will fall back into the abyss of Federal budgeting at the end of the year. So, Betty Babcock, former first lady who is the president of the Montana Capitol Restoration Foundation, has been asking cities and counties to donate any unused CTEP funding for renovation of the steps in the front of the Capitol. So far seven counties (Lewis and Clark, Golden Valley, Prairie, Lake, Glacier, Roosevelt and Jefferson Counties) have all donated money. This is enough for the engineering work for renovation of the grand steps. We ask you to consider donating your time-encumbered CTEP funding to this project. The letter being given you from Mrs. Babcock has the protocol and procedure to donate to the state capitol steps. Please consider this. You will receive a CTEP appropriation next year also. So this isn’t the last shot at MDT funding that you are going to get.”
MSU EXTENSION SERVICE--UPDATE
Leroy Luft, Interim Vice
Provost and Director
The text of this session is
in the Presentations Section attached to these minutes.
FISCAL REPORT
Dan Watson, MACo Fiscal
Officer, Rosebud County
PILT
Assessment: (See Attachments)
“This is to cover additional costs for WIR dues and adding another WIR Board member. There is a total increase to the Association of $9,129. The WIR special assessment is for a two-year period and has been presented to the Board. It comes at the time when we are seeing increases in our PILT payments. Some of us have seen 40% to 60% increases. It’s not at full funding yet, but it is one of the issues that will continue to be worked on.”
QUESTIONS
Anita Varone, Lewis and
Clark County
When was the last time the dues were increased,
both MACo and WIR dues?
For MACo dues, the last increase was 1984. WIR dues also have not increased since beginning in 1983. This will be a short-term assessment.
Jean Curtiss, Missoula
County
Is this a two-year assessment or is this to add
a new assessment?
This will be an additional two-year assessment, in addition to your regular dues. We are looking at this as a special assessment for the current budget year.
Connie Eissinger, WIR President, McCone County
“WIR is a group of western states. In the beginning, they established a Public Lands Trust. This Trust was to grow and to pay for expenses of the WIR Board to lobby in DC and to go to meetings around the United States. The PILT Fly-In is held every year in Washington DC to lobby very intensively for two days. They try to make it to the Eastern states’ congressional delegations because we need to get Eastern states to help get those increases. It’s an educational lobbying effort so that people know how important PILT is, especially in the West where there is so much public land. It’s been very, very successful. The Public Lands Trust has been decreasing because there have been so many people using it over the years. This is an effort to bring the Trust up to $75,000 and then maintain that level. In future years, the interest can be used to continue with this project.
Paul Beddoe is here. He is our NACo staff person for the Public Lands Steering Committee and also for the Western Interstate Region Board. He can answer any questions you might have.
Last summer we had a workshop in Lewistown on federal land payments. One of the NACo staff from DC, who is a liaison with the Bureau of Land Management, was here and spoke on federal payments to counties. On the Public Lands Steering Committee and also at Western Interstate Region Board we enjoy access to some of the top officials in these agencies. It is good to be able to be on a first name basis and to be able to let them know what our problems are.
Western Interstate Region has been a good thing for Montana.”
Cynthia Johnson, Pondera
County
It is my understanding that if the assessment was less than $50 then it would actually be zero. It says with a minimum of $50 per each member county.
You are correct. That statement is misleading. If you look at the schedule, it says, “Zero, if less than $50.” In other words if the county is at $50 or more, it would have an increase; but if it’s not up to $50, there would be no special assessment.
COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
Carol Brooker, MACo President, Sanders County
The WIR Board wants more urban representation. They have asked for an urban representative from Montana. If this passes, we will have two positions on the Board.
Bill Kennedy,
Yellowstone County
Yesterday we were asked to look at another position, also with funding. If that position were looked at for Public Lands and if this position were looked at for WIR, is there enough money from the total assessment to do that?
Watson: At the Board meeting yesterday, we had a request for an additional member on the NACo Public Lands Committee. With the current proposal, MACo would continue to pay the current NACo costs, and the PILT Assessment would pick up the additional board members in the special assessment. There would barely be enough to cover those additional costs and it would not provide any future relief to the Association.
MACo Dues Increase (See Attachments)
“We were trying to base the dues on taxable value only and not take into consideration other items. We struggled with several different methods to assess dues. We will still study those and in the interim we are proposing a temporary dues increase. This particular proposal is for the year 2005 only. It has to be approved by the membership, according to the bylaws.
The Board was quite concerned as to the timing of this particular request along with the PILT Assessment. We tried to clarify that this is for the next budget year, not the current budget year.
During the district meetings we had some questions about budget cuts, cost containment or keeping the cost down, rather than increasing dues. We have identified four particular areas where we feel that we have some control over the cost of MACo expenses: the NACo Committees, the MACo Committees, the staff travel and the printing costs.
The changes in the current revenues have come over the years from a decline in interest earnings, re-classification of counties which has caused decrease in dues, and reliance on outside one-time funds like the GPS-GIS project. If we are to head off a future problem and if we are to continue to provide current activities, then we need revenue increases. The revenue would have to come from membership or from outside sources.
The Committee recommended building up the reserves. 25% basically was an interim proposal. We didn’t want to put the dues increase strictly into operations, but have some used for reserves. The reserves we are most concerned with are the operating cash reserves. (We have other reserves for planned expenditures such as retirements, building replacement, etc.) The problem is that the operating cash reserve is roughly a third of what it was three years ago. The proposed increase of 25% would generate roughly $53,125 over the current dues level.
Visit further with your Board member, the District Chair, who can describe the discussions at our Board meetings and some possible alternatives that are being considered.”
COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
John Prinkki, District 7
Chair, Carbon County
In the vote that we will take Wednesday, you have all the options that you have with any other vote. You could either vote to support the 25% increase, or any amendment that you would like to have with that, or you could balance reductions in services just like we do within our county budget. One of these proposals at our board meeting was to postpone the decision on the dues increase until our midwinter meeting and look at some other alternatives. So we have at least those three different options that we can work within. It’s not a yes or no vote. We do have other choices.
Gary Fjelstad, MACo Past
President, Rosebud County
There was conversation as to whether or not the Committee’s recommendations should be taken to that leadership meeting in December, really worked on and brought to the full membership at the Midwinter meeting. I encourage everybody to talk with their District Chairs so that we could make a good decision on Wednesday.
Carol Brooker, MACo
President, Sanders County
At that Board retreat we would also have the Finance Committee there to share what they were thinking with this proposal so we would be able to bring the ideas back.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE REPORT
Carol Brooker, President
The three nominations for Fiscal Officer are:
Bill Nyby, Sheridan County
Rita Windom, Lincoln County
Allan Underdal, Toole County
President Brooker called for further
nominations. There were none.
Bill Nyby, Sheridan County
I thank Districts 1, 2 and 3 for nominating me for this position. First, I would work to keep MACo a vibrant, strong organization, working to serve the member counties. Second, I would work on a tax reform package that we could take to the Legislature.
Rita Windom, Lincoln County
I’m on my second term as County Commissioner. I am here because my fellow commissioners asked me to come here. I only have one job--that’s being a County Commissioner, so I have the time to devote to this position.
My background is in small business, college courses in accounting, business law, real estate law and banking. I’ve been doing our county budget since I took office in 1997. I am one of those people who enjoys working with numbers and I’m good at it.
After having worked on Taxation, Finance and Budget Committee for the last year or so, it’s been very obvious that our economy has hit MACo hard. Our reserves are low. We need to work on getting those up.
And we need to work at more efficient use of the resources that we have at hand, like having telephone conferences. We don’t all need to be in the same room to make decisions. We just have to have the same information.
Our uncertain economy, particularly in our rural areas and particularly in my county, leads me to believe that we need tax reform and we need it sooner than later. We have to be working immediately to inform our legislators so that everyone understands our economic situation. We need to be prepared to be major players in the next legislative session. Without major tax reform our counties and our State are not going to thrive.
Allan Underdal, Toole County
I would like to have the chance to serve you again as Fiscal Officer.
Tax reform is the issue that
we need to pursue as an organization.
The time is coming when it will be more palatable to the
legislators.
I am a third generation
Montanan; I have a wife of 28 years and four children. This year was a momentous year for me
because 1) I turned 50 and 2) I became a grandfather for the first time. I have been a commissioner for 10˝ years and been on the Board
of Directors for MACo for five years, two of those as Fiscal Officer. I also represent MACo on the NACo Finance
and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.
I do have some experience in this position and I would like to put that
to work for you.
I want to maintain fiscal
accountability in MACo. We talked about
the dues increases. They are necessary
if we are to maintain the level of service we have going.
The Urban Counties will meet and decide their
representative for the Executive Board.
That name will be brought forward on Wednesday.
The remaining Executive Committee
nominations are:
Carol Brooker for President
Bill Kennedy for First Vice President
Doug Kaercher for Second Vice
President
Gary Fjelstad for Past President.
The 2004 Conference will be held in Missoula.
Jean Curtiss, Missoula
County
On behalf of Missoula County
I welcome you and invite you to come to Missoula County next year for
Conference. We look forward to having
you there and we promise you won’t have any smoke--it’s all cleared up.
Two counties bid for the 2005
Conference--Yellowstone County and Flathead County.
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County
We have a great meeting facility at the
Holiday Inn. We have great shopping and
entertainment throughout the City of Billings.
We would like to invite all of you to come to Billings in 2005 for the
Annual Conference. We are looking at
some options for taking you off campus and for other fun and
entertainment. We hosted the WIR
Convention two years ago and we had a great time. We ask you to support Billings as your stop in 2005 for the
Conference.
Gary Hall, Flathead County
Flathead Lodge is by
Flathead Lake, about ten minutes from downtown Kalispell. So far they have invested $2 million into
the property there. It is a beautiful
facility with many rooms and the view of Flathead Lake. In my past life I was a conference
organizer, so I’m excited and looking forward to the possibility of doing
this. Howard Gipe will have just
recently retired after 18 years as a commissioner, so one of the highlights of
being up in the Flathead will be an opportunity to roast Howard. We will make this work for you.
The
text of the session is in the Presentations Section of these minutes.
Sample
ballot texts are in the Attachments to these minutes.
Dr.
Michael Spence, State Medical Officer, MT DPHHS Health Policy & Services
Division
The
text of this session is in the Presentations Section attached to these
minutes.
Dr. Paul Beddoe, Associate Legislative Director for NACo and WIR, was the luncheon speaker.
“The question was asked whether or
not we would allow proxy votes. In the
Delegate Assembly Rules, Rule 3 reads, ‘Each regular member has one vote. Regular members shall be those counties
which contribute annually to the financial support of the Association. There shall be one county delegate and one
alternate with the authority to vote.
The delegate and the alternate must be elected county officials.’ Rule 5 reads, ‘All voting shall be by show
of hands or voice vote.’ That would
tell you that you have to be present to vote.
Rule 7 says there can be a suspension of the rules. So it is my interpretation of our Delegate
Assembly Rules that if we want to grant any county the right to use a proxy, we
should vote for the suspension of the rules.
That will require a motion to suspend the rules, stating the purpose of
the suspension. Then it would require
2/3 of the assembly to vote in favor of the motion.”
Nancy Espy, Powder River County
Powder River County made
this request for the proxy vote.
However, after reading your rules for hand vote or voice vote, I don’t
feel that it is possible.
Prinkki: By
suspending the rules we will allow for a different type of a vote, for you to
offer a proxy. If the assembly will
approve that, then you can leave your proxy with whatever county or individual
you want. A proxy is similar to the
power of attorney. You can give that to
whomever you want and then they would present your vote.
Espy: I move to suspend the rules to allow for a proxy vote for any
county that is in attendance and registered at this Conference and forced to
leave early. The motion was seconded by
Joan Stahl, Rosebud County.
We came to the conference planning to be here for
the three days. We have to leave early
due to a medical problem. We came
together. Our representative to vote is
riding with me and I’m the one who has the problem. We feel very strongly about the importance of voting and that is
why we have asked for the suspension of the rules so that we can have a proxy
vote for the items to be voted on at this Conference. That means our vote would go to some individual, a member, who
would vote at our direction.
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County
Are
you asking for counties that came to this Conference and may have to leave
early or does this mean if we suspend the rules, we wait for someone to call
from a county that didn’t come to the Conference and ask to assign a proxy,
too? If a county makes an effort to
come to the Conference and is here, a proxy is not a concern. But if a county didn’t come at all, are
we granting them also the opportunity to vote?
Espy: No, this would be only for a
county that is here and has to leave early.
A county couldn’t vote which isn’t attending. We are here; we came to stay and we are not able to.
Joan Stahl, Rosebud County
We are making this much more
complicated. Powder River has asked for
permission to suspend the rules so they can have a proxy vote. We are asking for this on a one-time, now, Powder
River County only, thing. This is a
one-time one-instance. Someone else may
come next year and ask for this.
Mary Sexton, Teton County
Aren’t we doing two things
at once? Don’t we suspend the rules,
then we ask for the purpose for the suspension?
Prinkki: My interpretation is that the suspension of the rules has to
clarify why you are suspending. This is
a suspension of the rules to allow a proxy vote. Whatever motion you want to make regarding suspension of the
rules is appropriate. We just need to
be clear. I don’t anticipate any other
county having to leave early, but you could leave that open to any county that
is here and has to leave early.
Lance Olson, Cascade County
It’s possible that we will have to leave early also and my understanding of the motion, which I support, would be that any county that was in attendance and registered would be allowed a proxy vote. If that’s not true, I still support the motion if she wants to amend that to be just her county. My understanding is that a county in attendance and registered would be allowed that proxy vote.
Voice vote was declared and
then President Brooker called for the vote by roll. Fiscal Officer Watson called the roll. The motion carried by vote of 42-yes; 6-No; 8-No Response.
NOMINATIONS FOR
SECOND VICE PRESIDENT
Carol
Brooker, President
Nominations were opened for MACo Second Vice
President.
Art Kleinjan, Blaine County,
nominated Doug Kaercher, Hill County.
Following three calls for
nominations, there were no further nominations and nominations were closed.
The Urban Counties picked a new Representative, Jean Curtiss of Missoula County. Missoula County is not a member of the JPA Workers’ Compensation Trust, so there will be an election for the JPA Board of Trustees position.
Following meetings of individual MACo Committees, the Committee Chairs reported in the General Session.
“Concerning the resolution for
rights of way, we wondered why private individual rights were not
addressed. We will talk about that when
the resolutions are brought forth.
I did visit with Anita Varone, but
did not have a chance to visit with Connie Eissinger, about having a meeting of
the Agriculture Committee, the Economic Development Committee and the Public
Lands Committee to address issues of common interest. We feel that in order for Montana to thrive and survive, economic
development needs to include agriculture.
We are working on a January meeting, before February
calving starts, with a fantastic speaker who is the Denver area director of the
SBA. He spoke not only at the NACo
meeting, but also at our Rural Caucus.
He said that in order to improve the economy, agriculture and rural
areas have to be drawn in. We want to
meet with Stockgrowers, Graingrowers, Farm Bureau and find what we can
accomplish for rural areas and especially our agriculture communities.
We are concerned about lack of staff
at MSU in the agriculture area. I don’t
know if we are willing to put together a resolution so we can tackle that like
we did with the extension agents.
A huge area of concern is the water
issue. At a recent meeting the few of
us who were there felt that the philosophy of DNRC and the Bureau of Rec. was
towards urban areas assuming our water.
That is critical to our State. A
controversial water trust has been formed by a group in Missoula. We have members of the Agriculture Committee
who are on this trust.
We talked about weed management
plans. The weed representative on our
Agriculture Committee mentioned that there will be more dollars sent from the
Department of Agriculture for control of saltcedar.
We had a resolution to encourage
counties to form drought committees. In
Hill County, the drought committee’s first meeting had maybe ten people; at the
last meeting about a month ago, 23 people were there. If you don’t have your drought committee formed, please do
so. There was an email questionnaire
sent from Jesse Aber from the State Drought Committee not too long ago. I advise you to fill it out and send it
in. They want to hear from local
people.
The
lines of communication are opening between agencies and it’s really good as far
as actually knowing about your fire danger, knowing about water issues, talking
about weeds, the whole gamut. The key
word is communication.”
“This is the fifth meeting that we have held since we were established at the beginning of the year. Our energy and excitement about economic development is critical to MACo.
We are reviewing the policy
statement. We established what we want
to do for Montana. What we don’t want
to do is pit east against west, urban against rural, democrats against
republicans. Our goal is to work for
the gains of the State.
We decided to work, if we can, on
the state of the economy and the communities.
We started by inviting individuals from economic development
corporations to give us an overview. We
spoke with Gateway Economic Development of Helena and the economic development
group in Havre. Sue Mohr also joined us
and talked about the job training programs.
Mark Lindberg from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity spoke
to us in Fort Benton.
We asked the members what they do in economic
development in their areas. It was
interesting to learn what similarities and what differences we have. Economic development touches every community
and every county. We are excited that
economic development will be in the forefront.
We decided that we had to see what
communities across Montana were doing that was successful. First, we went to Fort Benton and visited
with the businesses. Jim O’Hara set
this up. We visited with Bob Quinn who
owns a wind energy company with a cousin in Europe. They are going to be establishing one in the Judith Gap
area. We toured a hotel, a grain mill
and Taylor Aviation. Taylor Aviation
has the largest single engine fire-hardened plane corporation in the United States
and maybe in the world.
In November we will meet in
Hamilton. Betty Lund in Ravalli County
is setting that up for us. She is
planning to have some successful business folks give presentations and will put
together some tours for us. The
Director of Department of Commerce, Mark Simonich, asked to come to our next
meeting, so either he or his chief deputy Ann Fuller will be attending the
meeting in Hamilton. They want to let
us know what is happening in development programs. MACo is a highly
respected organization in the State. We
decided that it is important, if possible, to partner up when we go to the
legislature for economic development issues.
So early on we met with the Montana Economic Development
Association. They are very interested in
partnering with us. We made contact
with several Montana Ambassadors who
also will attend our meeting in November in Ravalli County. Mike McGinley is on the MEDA Board and Jim
O’Hara is a Montana Ambassador. We
believe that three well-respected organizations going to the legislature is
stronger than individually or independently.
We are discussing legislative issues that MEDA is already working
on. Several of us will be attending
that meeting next month.
We also have written several letters
of support for grants for corporations that are either established or want to come
into Montana. In Washington DC, we all
met with the person Kathy described. He
indicated that there is money in the Farm Bill for economic development, so we
feel it is important for Montana to ask him to come. Hopefully in January we will see him.”
“We are going to have a summit in
January or March. The Committee to plan
this will meet October 10 at 10:00 am at the Mental Health Center in Miles
City. We will also be meeting October
31 in Missoula at 10:00 am. If you
would like to join us as we discuss the summit, we would love to have you
there. We want to update everyone on
the current law, what needs to be offered for mental health services in every
county, problems in the community--both urban and rural, legislation for the
2005 session and funding. Those are the
four basic areas we want to discuss in the summit. We would like to have a list of names of people to be invited to
the summit from every county to give us their input.
We talked about the alcohol tax
dollars. As you remember, Rep. Edith
Clark carried a bill that 20% of the alcohol dollars that are collected in the
State of Montana go back to counties for alcohol treatment programs. In a presentation today, they proposed
having a contract with each county, but there’s a twist to it. They would like the alcohol dollars to stay
with the State and they could distribute dollars back to us. We would like the dollars to come to the
counties, just like we do with every other governmental transfer, and do a
trade back to the State to increase the rates for alcohol providers in the
counties. Here is an opportunity for us
to do like we do with mental health dollars and get that money out to the
providers. We are working on that and
we will get something out to each of you.
We are going to be working on
resolutions coming up for the 2005 session, so if there is anything that you
feel that we need to be looking at, let us know.”
Gordon Morris: In regard to the transfers, is it the case that this has to be
uniformly applied across the State? Do
all counties have to do this?
Kennedy: We were told today that the Department said that the
intergovernmental transfers have to be done by all 56 counties before the
Department will even look at that. But,
we are trying to get an opinion from Greg Petesch on what the actual Edith
Clark bill stated. We will get back to
you on that.
“We talked about two things in the IT Committee. The first is a draft RFP for self-funded electronic government services through MACo. Counties could participate in the ability to pay taxes, fees, etc., through electronic check or with credit card. Gordon Morris gave us a draft proposal for vendors to supply this service to the counties. Some counties have already started and other counties see a need for it but know that it is expensive. At least a summary of this proposal should go out to all counties so that you know what is being considered.
Before we move with this effort, we do need to contact the Clerks and Recorders and Treasurers and have them participate in this effort, because this is very important to them. We want to consider this possibility for having self-funded e-government services through MACo. We may have Montana Imaging International, that does the State’s Discovering Montana and all their applications for e-government, present what the State is doing so that we have a better idea of what might be available for counties. If you have further questions, people from the State are here and Art Pembroke from Lewis and Clark County is here.
Second, information has been provided by the Geographic Information Council, which uses Cadastral and the various layers available from ENRIS. There is a question about funding to keep this information updated. We all use it in various ways, whether it’s rural addressing or DES or for planning or by different entities. So there is an effort to go to the legislature regarding the Montana Geographic Information Act and find a funding source for keeping up the current data.”
JUSTICE AND PUBLIC SAFETY
COMMITTEE
Roddy Rost, Fallon County, Chair
“We had a proposal dealing with housing of inmates, asking the State to pay a portion. We are still looking at ways of re-wording that, keeping it as legislation. We will ask the Peace Officers Association and the County Attorneys Association for some support. Credit for time served is basically mandatory, so if the law says they get credit for time served and that time has been served in the county jail, the State should pick up that tab or even a portion of that. We have had this before the legislature twice and it hasn’t gone anywhere because of budgets, but we don’t want it to die because we strongly feel that it affects every county and it is an obligation of the State. (President Brooker assigned this to the Resolutions Committee.)
On the county attorney pay issue, drafted by Leo Gallagher, Lewis and Clark County, and given us by the Resolutions Committee, we had a lot of questions. Everybody needs to take this back and talk with their attorneys and commissioners.”
LAND USE PLANNING AND
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
John Prinkki, Carbon County, Chair
“We intend to draft a resolution to reinstate the community technical assistance program that was eliminated by the State Legislature. We feel that the $260,000 cost to the State was some of the best money spent.
Of interest is the inconsistency between the Sanitation and Subdivision Act and the Subdivision Platting Act. The Subdivision Platting Act has a 160-acre limit; the Sanitation and Subdivision Act has 20 acres. We want to visit with DEQ and the Interim Legislative Committee about bringing consistency back. We want to have the same number of acres per review.
There is concern about the non-fed. rules with DEQ and the ARMS. Paddy Trusler from Lake County has a strong background in this issue and said that there isn’t scientific basis for establishing the rules. So we would like to work with DEQ and their ARMs. A subcommittee of the Land Use Planning Committee will try to meet with DEQ to do that.”
PUBLIC LANDS COMMITTEE
Connie Eissinger, McCone County, Chair
“We had Paul Beddoe with us to give us in-depth discussion of full funding of PILT and the forest legislation. We need a statement from this group to support full funding of PILT to be sure that we are on record.
Donna Sevalstad has worked on the healthy forest legislation and will be presenting it to the Forest Counties. I would like the Public Lands Committee to meet just prior to their meeting so that we can look it over. We will act on it at that time.
The Cooperating Agency workshop will be held in Billings on Tuesday, October 14. Most of us have public lands and it’s an important workshop for us to attend. Cynthia Nedd-Moses, who gave us the public lands workshop last summer, will be attending. It will be at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center and you can register with the MACo office.
We would like to meet on the State Lands Right-of-Way resolution. We are not comfortable with the language that was presented. We would like to work with the Transportation Committee and meet with DNRC for more input on what we need to say. We would like to do this before the end of the year.
Off-highway vehicles are not collecting the weed tax and we think that it would be a good idea to have them participate in the tax. We will be doing some investigation on that and a resolution may be brought forward.
We didn’t discuss working with the Agriculture Committee and the Economic Development Committee on the economic development. I think that would be an important thing to do. A resolution from our State could go to NACo to help us to work on a better situation between the Small Business Administration and rural counties.“
RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE
Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County, Chair
“There is a procedure for the introduction of resolutions. There is also a sample of how a resolution should be written. If you get close to that, the Resolutions Committee or MACo staff will take care of it. (See Attachments)
Resolution #1 on utility rates was introduced by Teton County. The Resolutions Committee asked that this be re-written to take out the specific references to the companies involved. The Committee considers this to be a very important issue and we would like to have it re-submitted at the Mid-Winter Conference, so letters can be sent dealing with this.
Resolution #2 is a resolution for exemption to nepotism that is designed after the school nepotism law. The Resolutions Committee decided to keep this in the Resolutions Committee. The recommendation is “Do Pass” with Medium Priority. We will hold it until next year when the full body will act on it.
Resolution #3, State lands right-of-way, was referred to the Public Lands Committee. We expect it to be worked over, changed and brought back, along with their recommendation that it also go to Transportation Committee.
Resolution #4 is the County Attorney pay issue. The only way this can be introduced is to give it to the Board of Directors prior to coming to the Resolutions Committee. It is important to know that this exists. It’s an attempt to have a cooperative resolution between the County Attorneys Association and counties. The intent here is not to have counties assume full pay out of your tax dollars for county attorneys, but to put part of the county attorney salaries in the big bill and have that money flow to counties, rather than the nightmare we have now where two different agencies paying your county attorney. If my commissioners agree, we will introduce it at a district meeting, since Leo Gallagher, from Lewis and Clark County, is a representative of the County Attorneys Association. It is the intent of the Resolutions Committee to move this to the Justice and Public Safety Committee. So if you have recommendations or suggestions, get them to Justice and Public Safety or to the Resolution Committee.”
Harold Blattie: During the legislative session, we came very close to losing the funding for county attorney salaries. In the subcommittee the chairman wished to remove that funding completely. He was unsuccessful in the subcommittee meeting; but in the House, we did lose $481,000. In the Senate Finance and Claims we were able to restore $286,000. That restored funding to the Department of Justice for 50% of the 2003 county attorney salaries. We still have issues with the State not fully funding 50% of the salaries and we have budget timing issues.
The Interim Justice Committee met. Attorney General McGrath presented this issue to the Committee and I spoke with the Committee later that day. Basically, we (MACo and the County Attorney Association) were assigned, “Why don’t you two groups go and work out a solution to this problem and bring it back to us.” When we think about having the endorsement of that Interim Committee, it would be very instrumental in moving that proposal forward.
We are asking for your help. One of the options would be to put the money into the entitlement share, where it would then grow by the annualized growth factor and then the counties would assume all the responsibilities for payment of the county attorney salaries. Another option, 180 degrees from that, would be in 2005 we would lose the entitlement share, and the State would become responsible for the payment of all the county attorney salaries. We could even say that the county attorney would become a state employee. That’s just a couple of options. We are asking for your help with ideas. Please get your suggestions to us because it is an issue that does need to be addressed. We want to find a solution that is agreeable to everyone.
Murray: On the full-funding for PILT, there will be a proposal at the General Session tomorrow that the full body can vote on. That’s allowable because of the committee presentations.
TAXATION, FINANCE AND BUDGET
COMMITTEE
Dan Watson, Rosebud County, Chair
“We dealt basically with two issues. We have been asked to form a coalition or a task force on tax reform from the MACo point-of-view. We are asked to use members of our Committee to host a group including legislators, school boards, schools, the ag. community, the Montana Foundation, to come up with some meaningful tax reform. This is in addition to the Interim Legislative Committee, which has already met. Hopefully, we can do this in a shorter time period so we can get out in front of the Legislative Committee and be in conjunction with what they are trying to do. We have at least three members of our committee willing to do that. We will be working on the calendar shortly to get invitations out to the stakeholders and hopefully get ahead of the game.
We also dealt with the proposal before you for the dues increase. The Committee has asked me to clarify the reserve amount that we are trying to target. We based that on the possibility of our budget for MACo at $600,000, setting a 20% reserve at $120,000. So, we need to set a specific amount of dues increase to meet that target for the reserve. Initially we were looking at a figure of roughly $40,000, assuming that would take us several years to get to the target.
The Committee is committed to working on changing the dues structure, not based on the ability to pay and not based on the current classification that is being used. We will continue that process, which we began almost a year ago, trying to put together something that we feel would be more equitable and fair to the membership.
We would encourage your continued discussions on the proposed dues increase. Did we spend much time looking at the expenditure side for cost containment or cost reduction? No, we were looking specifically for the reasons of the decreasing reserves. It’s been due to a combination of the reduction of revenues and increases in services. We have expanded our services at the same time we’ve had reductions in revenue from changes in classifications.”
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
Vern Petersen, Fergus County
“On Friday afternoon I was informed by Melody Haynes, Sharon Peterson’s replacement in Max Baucus’ Billings office, that everything was in place for a four-month continuing resolution for the highway funding bill, so there won’t be a glitch. There were concerns that a central resolution wasn’t enough this year and she maintained that all three hurdles had been addressed by Congress. It is good news that we can keep going until they get a bill passed.
We did talk about the state land rights-of-way resolution that was presented here yesterday. We have no problems supporting that or a similar concept, whatever comes out of the Resolution Committee. We think it needs to be kept on MACo’s plate because it is a big issue statewide.
President Brooker put together a field trip with the Executive Board and three members of the Transportation Committee. We visited with the counties that the Contractors Association continually brought up in the hearings for SB 46 and used as models to punish the rest of us. We visited with those folks in their counties. I wish we had done that prior to the session. It was really, really informative. Those people are doing what is right for their taxpayers beyond question. They are keeping records that we will have available to put this to rest. The one thing that I ask you to do is to visit with your legislators prior to the session and try to get them to understand the issue. It’s difficult when they get up there in those hearings and hear innuendos and total falsifications that are being passed out, such as the Contractors were representing the taxpayers and you were the one out to take advantage of them, and so forth. So, it would be in all of our best interests if we could visit with those folks on this topic prior to the next session.
How do we mitigate the costs for the use of our roads by other agencies when they approve a camping spot or a fishing access and add another 1,000 cars to our roads? We met with MDT about a week ago. Their concern is primarily with the cities. They have a problem, when they have a road contract through a town, for example, and the town wants to tack on a sewer improvement project with the contract because it affects that system. The town lets them know what it’s supposed to cost but by the time the RID is done and they let the contract, the price has doubled. So, how do they fund that increase? We’ll keep working on that.
The State is enforcing the all-road language that is in their special provisions. In most cases, the State does enforce that provision.
The Secondary Roads policy, according to both Mr. Blacker and Mr. Galt, is working very well in their opinion and the Committee members agree with that.”
MONTANA ECONOMY
Larry Swanson, Center
for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana
The text of this session is in the Presentations Section of these minutes.
Luncheon speaker was Mike Kadas, Mayor of Missoula. A synopsis of his remarks is on page 59 in the Presentations Section attached to these minutes.
GENERAL SESSION
President Carol Brooker,
Sanders County
The September 24, 2003, letter from US Senator Max Baucus was read aloud.
A video from US Senator Conrad Burns was viewed. A synopsis of the Senator’s comments is in the Presentations Section attached to these minutes.
President Brooker introduced the head table:
Dan Watson, Fiscal Officer, Rosebud County
Gary Fjelstad, Past President, Rosebud County
John Prinkki, Parliamentarian, Carbon County
Howard Gipe, Urban Representative, Flathead County
Bill Kennedy, First Vice President, Yellowstone
County
Doug Kaercher, Second Vice President, Hill County
Gordon Morris, Executive Director
ROLL CALL
Dan Watson, MACo Fiscal
Officer, Rosebud County
At the call of the roll, 52 of 56 member counties
responded and Watson announced quorum present to conduct business. One proxy was present for Powder River
County
Flathead County, Commissioner Gary Hall
We would love to be the
host. We have a new property called
“White Oak”, which is about ten minutes from downtown Kalispell. There has been $2 Million in renovation. It has beautiful banquet rooms and beautiful
hotel rooms. We would love to have you
in the Flathead. Thanks for this
opportunity to be a part of these meetings.
Yellowstone County, Commissioner Bill
Kennedy
We
would like to have the annual conference in Billings because the Mayor called
us and asked if we could have Billings Day at the MACo Conference. We would like to submit our “day” bid. The Holiday Inn has excellent convention
facilities. With that we have shopping
malls, entertainment and we are looking forward to doing something extra
special off-site. If we are able to
host you in 2005, we will be sure to have Commissioner Jim Reno at the front
door to greet each of you and to carry in your bags.
President Brooker called for voice vote, for which there was no clear majority. Vote by hand was conducted and Yellowstone County was named the site for 2005 Conference.
ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Fiscal Officer Candidates
Rita Windom, Lincoln County
I am Rita Windom from
Lincoln County and I am extremely privileged and honored to run for the fiscal
officer position. I really would like
to have that position.
I love working with budgets; I love making things
work and being fiscally sound and responsible.
If you give me that opportunity, I assure you that I will take that
responsibility and do the best I can for you.
Bill Nyby, Sheridan County
If you feel I am the best candidate, I would appreciate your support.
Allan Underdal, Toole County
I am grateful to be able to run
for this position again. I would like
to be able to represent you on the Board as fiscal officer and I would use my
experience to serve you as best I can. I would appreciate your vote.
President Brooker appointed Dave Reinhardt, Valley County, and Donna Sevalstad, Beaverhead County, to count the ballots.
On the first ballot, Rita Windom and Bill Nyby received the most votes. So another ballot was circulated for those two candidates.