92ND Annual Conference
President
Fjelstad introduced the head table:
Fiscal
Officer Alan Underdal Urban
Representative Mike Murray
1st VP Dean Harmon Parliamentarian
John Prinkki
2nd VP Victor Miller Executive
Director Gordon Morris
President Fjelstad called
for one minute of silence in remembrance of all that had occurred September 11,
2001.
As luck would have it, you are about to hear another
story about the trials and tribulations of the early pioneers in this part of
Eastern Montana. When the influx of
Scandinavian pioneers came in and hit upon hard times, Ole and Sven found
themselves without work. But Ole did
manage to find himself a job tending a flock of sheep in the wilderness of Prairie
County. He was prone to the excesses of
young manhood on the rare occasions that he did come to town and he tended to
overdo things a bit. On one occasion
when he made it to town, he felt particularly bad and thought he ought to see a
doctor. So he went to the doctor who gave him a thorough
examination and said, “Ole, I hate to tell you this, but I think you got
dysentery.” Ole said, “Oh, no, Doc. If I got ‘dis anyplace, I got ‘dis right
here in Miles City.”
In my other job, I am the technology coordinator for
Glendive Public Schools. I have come to
know how important it is that everyone receives their electronic mail on their
computer. I’m sure many of you look forward
each day to some of the words of wisdom which come across the wires from people
you know and some you wish you didn’t know.
I’m sure some of you have missed this, this morning, because you
couldn’t open your email and read some of these words of wisdom. So I brought a couple with me so that you
could make it through the day.
“God, grant me the senility
to forget the people I never liked, the good fortune to run into the ones that
I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.”
“I started out with nothing
and I still have most of it.”
“It is easier to get older
than it is to get wiser.”
Two weeks ago none of us could have guessed
what was about to happen the morning of Tuesday, September 11. I am sure your discussions and decisions
will all be effected by the current events.
I pray that God will guide and bless you. On behalf of the community of Glendive, I extend a heartfelt
welcome and wish you all the best.”
RESPONSE
Dean Harmon, First Vice President, Roosevelt County
“Thank you for those kind words, Mr. Mayor. On behalf of all the commissioners and delegates who are here today that we appreciate this. We are very happy to be in Eastern Montana. What you might not know is that I am kind of a native. I lived in Bainville, just up north of Sidney. We are most appreciative of all of the efforts put forth by the City of Glendive, the beautification and preparation for this meeting, along with the businesses that have made special efforts to accommodate us. Thank you for having us come to Glendive.”
ROLL CALL
Allan Underdal, MACo Fiscal Officer, Toole County
At the call of the roll, 52 counties responded and Underdal announced quorum present to conduct business.
Department
of Revenue
Kurt Alme, Director
“I was a lawyer and accountant before this. When the Director of Revenue came to the State Bar meetings and to the State CPA meetings, we would hiss at him. So, I think your applause is a good sign.
Recently a friend of mine emailed me this, “If the creation of the world had been a government project, it would have taken six years instead of six days.” I think that underscores the view that some people have about government--that we are not efficient. Frequently people think the federal government is least effective, then the state, then county local governments are best. It’s my view that whenever government decisions can, they ought to be handled at the level that’s closest to the people. It’s important that we work together to make the process work as well as it can. I am committed to have the Department of Revenue continue to collaborate and work through issues that are important to the taxpayers, whom we all represent.
Before I go into issues we have collaborated on recently, I want to thank people in this room, Gordon, Gary, Dean, Harold and others, who have been wonderful in the last year as we worked through HB 124 and your certification of values. The approach that you folks have taken towards working with us positively and constructively sure has helped us meet our obligations.
Regarding the implementation of HB 124, on September 17 all entitlement share distributions for the first payment went out to counties and all cities and towns. Over $20 Million was distributed. The first check was handed to Lewis and Clark County by Lt. Governor Ohs at the Capitol on Monday. It was good to finally see something tangible come out of all the hard work that people in this room did. I think that was a good success.
We all know the growth factor wasn’t put into this first entitlement share package. In order to calculate the growth factor we need to have district court fees for all the counties. We are optimistic that we are going to get them here shortly. So that growth factor, as well as any changes in issues that come up in the next few months, will be taken into account for the next entitlement share payment. This, again, is an example of some real significant help and cooperation. With ambiguities in the statutes and when issues arose, we tried to get as much discussion as we could early on; we tried to coordinate through Gordon’s office. I am sure we are going to find more, but as they come up, we will talk about them and work through them.
I know I’m catching you off guard with this next issue, because I haven’t had a chance to talk to people about it. Last week, DNRC, in reviewing HB 124, determined that the fire assessment, which 31 counties collect on property taxes statements, was not changed. It was changed in one section dealing with where you remit your check if you’re the taxpayer, but the main statute on how the payment is made was not changed. We have an ambiguity in the statute about whether we pay the treasurer or pay the Department of Revenue. When you have an ambiguity, you go to the legislative intent, which was to pay directly to the Department of Revenue. But that intent was contingent upon certain efficiencies such as the hail premium, the per-capita livestock fee and the fire assessment all going out on the same bill. That is not possible because we can’t cross-reference DNRC’s data base by an identifier like a social security number. Before we made this decision, we talked with the sponsor, Bob Story in Park City, and spoke with DNRC. We tried to contact all 31 county treasurers who are impacted by fire assessments and timberland. One county was going to have a problem so we talked to that county and worked it out. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to talk about this as we normally would for HB 124 issues, but we quickly made the decision to continue to have the fire assessments billed and collected as they have been and address it legislatively in two years. I apologize because our goal in administering HB 124 has been to stay in close contact with Gordon, with the officers at MACo and the county offices which are affected.
If you have any other questions about HB 124, I encourage you to catch Larry Finch, who is one of those people in the Department who is putting in countless hours in our tax policy area trying to get HB 124 properly implemented. I thank Larry, Judy, Brad and everybody on the staff who have been working late nights to be sure that entitlement share payments went out timely. John Grimm is here from the Department from the property tax division, so if you have any particular questions about newly taxable or about reappraisals, please catch him.
I want to touch on the certification of taxable values. Our goal, as always, is to certify by the second Monday in July. This year we allocated overtime to this and everybody was pretty excited because we hadn’t been able to do that several years. Then to our dismay, we found there were local issues that caused us to re-certify. Harold Blattie called us to let us know that the way we were handling deletions wasn’t in compliance with statute. Our property tax division had thought a legislative change had gone through so certified values had been done without deletions. We got it corrected but it delayed us several days. Certified taxable values will never be completely accurate as long as we have timeframes for centrally assessed businesses appeals, which extend past the time that we have for certification of values. By the time we get appeals resolved, even if they are resolved quickly, it triggers re-certification. We’ve been talking with the leadership of MACo and county treasurers’ offices about those time frames to have some of the centrally assessed business appeals worked out earlier.
In our old computer system we made adjustments so that it was Y2K complaint and a bug was introduced that we weren’t able to pick up. As we started entering re-appraisal data, it started moving re-appraisal data into the current year data. We discovered the errors after certification occurred in July. That’s why the re-certification occurred in August.
We are not proud of these because we know how disruptive it is to you all not to get those values timely. To make that go as smoothly as we can in the future, in November we will go through the whole process to iron it out so that next year we can hit that timeline accurately.
I want to talk quickly about economic development from the tax policy point of view. Besides working as the Director of the Department of Revenue, I came on as a tax policy advisor to the governor at the beginning of this year. I graduated from Miles City and I resent the fact that my family and friends had to leave the state to find good paying jobs. So if there’s any one burning issue to me, it’s that we get that problem corrected. When the governor made that the centerpiece of her campaign and administration, I volunteered. That’s how I ended up here. We are trying to focus on creating and retaining good paying jobs in Montana. That’s how we define economic development. We will look at all aspects of doing business in Montana, including major taxes that impact a decision to locate a business here or to keep the business. We will also see if the total tax burden, industry by industry, is competitive. If we discover that our tax rates are out of line, that will be a focus of tax reform. We know income tax is out of line. The high end income tax can be the third highest rate in the country. Those rates are the rates that are paid by the people who make the decisions on where to locate businesses. We are also aware that our capital gains rate, because of the interplay with federal deductibility, has a surtax that is one of the highest in the country. We actually pay higher taxes on capital gains in Montana than we do in ordinary income. Third, we have a perception problem. The 11% highest margin rate is the highest stated rate in the country. Although because of federal deductibility, nobody pays it, it’s always a tough explanation to make and we can’t do it in a sound bite
I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all. I appreciate the cooperation that you have shown in trying to work with the Department to get HB 124 implemented and working with us on certified values. I thank you for calling us and working with us constructively. We are going to make mistakes and we are going to have problems, but we are open to correcting them and we are open to working with everybody to make the whole thing go as smoothly as we can. “
QUESTIONS
Jim Deckert “In our discussions in various areas around the state on the application of
Dawson County HB
124, there hasn’t been total agreement on who gets what money or what gets
handled. In the case of the Department
of Health and Human Services, we’ve all heard numerous times that, “It will be
this way and we’ll just take it out of your entitlement share.” My question to you is, “What process is there
in place, or is there one, for any bureaucracy in Helena to simply dip into our
entitlement share and hold that money out on us when we don’t agree with them?”
“I am not speaking for the Department of Health and Human Services. Obviously that shouldn’t be happening. The goal of how we try to administer HB124 from the beginning has been to do it through consensus and collaboration. To the extent that is not occurring, I would like to know and I’m sure Gail Gray in the Department of Health and Human Services would like to know. If there are going to be issues that we can’t resolve, it’s going to come down to, like everything else in this society, legal interpretation, lawyers, and eventually the courts. But we want to avoid that. Our goal is to follow legislative intent as closely as we can and to work together with all the counties and cities involved to find an arrangement of practical implementation that makes sense to everybody. If an agency is being heavy handed in implementing the bill, I want to know about it. I’m sure the governor does, too. If there are some specifics I would appreciate the chance to talk about it.”
Ted Coffman “This is probably the third time I’ve seen Kurt since the first of the year
Madison County and that’s probably more times than I have seen his predecessor in six years. I do appreciate, from Madison County, the effort that the Department of Revenue is making.”
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GOVERNOR’S
OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
Dave Gibson, Chief Business Officer
“I appreciate the opportunity to meet and talk to you folks. It’s a basic philosophy that it’s easier to say, “To the heck with him” than “To heck with you”, so I figure the more people I know out there, the more people I get to see my face, then the farther we’ll get.
I confess to you that I’m a whole lot more inspiring after I’ve actually done something. So after a month on the job what I can’t do is talk about all the things that we’ve done and the great accomplishments that were made. What I want to do is to give you an update on two things. The first one is where we are right now with getting the office up and running. The second part will be to share with you some of my general tenets on the foundation of the work we are doing.
My office has been here a little over a month. We are here to provide policy advice and direction and set a plan for economic development in this state. I will have four professional people working with me. One will handle energy policy and give direction on how we can partner with generators, utility companies and transmission companies in a cooperative way. Companies like PP&L and Montana Power are excellent partners for moving economic development forward. I’ve hired a person from Sims, Montana, who has a great deal of experience working with electric cooperatives. I have another person for Montana’s transition in workforce development. She has done the transition in Arizona the last year and half and has had great working relationships with tribal organizations, local government, labor unions, and others in a state that’s not that dissimilar from Montana. The third position is an information technology person who really understands businesses that have a high technology component. He is from Anderson Consulting, which is one of premier consulting organizations in this country that specialize in technology applications. A fourth position will be a recruiting business development person. We should have that filled by the end of the month. Including an administrative person there will be six of us by the first week in October.
We will be in phase one for the next six months--to get information and meet as many people as we can--like you, economic development professionals, local, city and state government elected officials, unions, businesses, and reservations. We are gathering information to pinpoint what economic development means to people, because what is going to work in Glendive is probably not going to work in Missoula or Great Falls. We will do this by region. We understand what works in the agricultural areas in the state would not probably work in an area like Missoula or Bozeman centered around universities. We need to understand those differences and what’s really important to people, because in phase two, which will start in November, we begin developing a strategic plan that will guide this state and the governor in economic development. We need appropriate input and information from people.
Kurt and I will be working hand in hand, just like I’ll be working with other key agencies to figure out how we can integrate those critical aspects of government--policy making, regulation, tax--into a plan for Montana to be competitive in economic development. In November we’ll start writing and hope to have a draft done in the first week in December. We will be back out to the people after the holiday season in January to share that plan and how we can approach economic development. All of that will come together at the end of February.
A plan sounds well and good; plans are great; we’ve all seen about a billion of them in our lives; some of them work and a lot of them don’t. I want to share with you the principles for what’s important in this plan. The first one is to lay the groundwork for continued long-term economic growth. For infrastructure improvement and long-term growth, a plan goes beyond us. It survives Dave Gibson; it survives Kurt Alme; it survives Governor Martz. If you look at economic development in states that really made it happen, the plans survived multiple administrations. Economic development changes a little bit, of course, as every governor or county commissioner adds their own flavor to it, but the basic plan continues. That is the over arching link that I want to leave in this office--to get moving in the right direction so that it won’t stop when I leave or the governor leaves or any of you.
Number two principal is a three-legged stool. One leg is that it is always cheaper to keep and retain customers that you already have, than it is to go out and find new ones. The first and biggest effort has to be retaining and growing businesses that we have already. It’s most economical, makes the most sense and is probably the fairest. But we need a second leg of that stool, which is to bring businesses into this state. We will do some business recruiting just in the natural course; and with attrition, businesses will leave, go out of business, people retire. We have to be competitive; we have to be able to attract the kinds of businesses that we want. The third leg of the stool, which is very similar to infrastructure, is that we have to provide an environment that allows businesses in this state to flourish. That doesn’t mean that we are propping up businesses that shouldn’t survive anyway; but it means that we do a really good job of providing an environment where businesses can thrive and grow. Those are the businesses that twenty years from now are going to be employing my children.
We need to understand our place in the chain as state government. We are not county or local government; we are not the federal government. We have a certain set of tools and we need to figure out where we can apply the greatest leverage. We have tremendous affect on tax, regulatory or permitting issues, etc. Although I don’t have it all fleshed out yet, we are going stay out of what is not our business. The last and most important principle that I hope you carry away is that we understand that economic development is local. It is local infrastructure; it is local politics; it is local workers; it is local land. These have to be conducive to growing and attracting and retaining businesses and to entrepreneurial start up. There is not a single person that ever comes to Montana to start a business; no body grows a business in Montana. They grow it in Glendive or Miles City or Havre or Great Falls. There is a place on the ground where they put the building and hire the people and send their children to school. Our soul purpose is to figure out how we can make the local communities and local economic development groups and political structures as strong as they can be so that we can grow businesses at the local level. The one thing that the governor has asked me to do as I go around the next months is to find out who wants help. We are not going to help anybody that tells us to stay out. We want to figure out what you need, where we can help and then we’ll stay out of the things where you don’t want us. I encourage you, if you have questions or comments or things that are important to you, please share those with us. That’s the sole purpose for our being here today--to get some input from you about where we can be the most effective in our coming roles.”
QUESTIONS
Elaine Allestad “When you go around to the different communities to find out about
Sweet Grass County economic development, are you going to use the existing groups, like RC&Ds and the local economic development groups?”
“Absolutely. Because I’ve only been at this 2 ½ weeks, I have quite a bit to do. We have to use the programs that exist. The core of what we are doing is to work with existing economic development groups like RC&Ds, the professional groups in the larger cities, BearPaw, etc. What we are really trying to figure out is who is strong in what. It really is amazing how much disparity there is in the areas of emphasis and in the skills that exist in local groups. My goal is to share learning around the state, and also from outside the state, from communities that have done a really good job over the years, to figure out how we make those existing agencies, groups, and people a lot stronger and more capable.”
Don Steppler “You talked about economic development going on in regions. Will
Richland
County there be a push to
regionalize this or are our economic development groups that we already have in
place going to be able to stand on their own merits?”
“I’ll give you a two-part answer. One is that clearly a number of the organizations in this state are doing wonderful jobs and don’t want any specific help. Those stand alone and we won’t do anything for them.
In terms of consolidations and combinations, it is not our intent, our goal, or our philosophy that we will ever force combinations or regionalize beyond the will of the counties and cities and people within those regions. I will tell you, however, that in many of the rural areas of this state, my personal belief (not that my belief would have anything to do with the outcome) is that places that don’t consolidate or combine forces are probably not going to survive. They don’t have the scale to be able to get full-time people and the resource allocation to do things like grant writing or making competitive bids for businesses that may want to come into an area. A critical aspect of what we do is to facilitate communities that want to combine. I give you the best example that I know of today--the BearPaw. They have a five county area and two Indian reservations. They do a very good job of spreading throughout the area in the small towns and the tribal organizations. It is a grant-writing machine. That’s a good example of the value for the state to spend time and energy to facilitate communities--to help, but never force.”
Elaine Mann “Do you include agriculture when talking about natural resources?”
Broadwater County
“Agriculture, mineral extraction and forest products industries in this state are huge and always will be. We want to do everything we can to facilitate those sectors of our economy. Those are mature businesses. We will spend tremendous effort finding out how we can make the communities, that are based on those industries, strong. We also realize that some of those industries are not growth industries. We need to diversify economies in communities that are dependent on mature industries, so that in the coming 25 or 30 years, we can provide jobs. In agriculture a great example is value-added agriculture, putting in converting facilities that use raw materials to provide alternatives for jobs and provide additional value. We also have to realize that we will not have an increase in population working in farming. Even if farming grows, it won’t provide more jobs because of increased efficiency and mechanization. We need to find ways to keep those farms going and to find work for people. My goal is diversification in areas that are growing and to continue to do what we can for mature industries that are right now in those communities.”
“Shouldn’t
we be marketing on market value, rather than just diversity? By market value I mean, when no one stands
up for the cost factor and the price just goes lower and lower.”
“I have some ideas for creative ways we can help that, which I won’t get into now. In the big scheme of things this is commodity pricing and there’s not that much we can do about it at the state level. Federal policy clearly influences that more than the state policy. I’m not sure what the state could do to facilitate a raise in, for example, wheat prices. I think ultimately we have to look at things like value-added ways to convert that and ways to diversify the rural economy, because I don’t think we will see rebounding in pricing of basic agriculture prices to recover to level we were at years ago. I will listen to any idea and if there is anything we can do, we will do it.”
Mike McCourt “Could you tell us a little bit about how you plan to bring some of the
Local Government larger industrial companies back, considering problems like energy? I’m thinking
Energy
Office examples up in
the Flathead, the aluminum plant, and the people in Butte?”
“One of the biggest things we can do is to look at energy pricing. We can’t really affect the price of aluminum or copper. We can and will figure out ways to provide reliable and low or moderately priced energy. It is not realistic to bring back the extractive industry in Butte or to think that extractive industry is going to be a growth industry. Evan Barrett, in Butte, recognized that and is bringing in companies that are diversifying that economy. I think that’s the right answer. What we can do is help with tax policy, with regulatory policy, with the full support to bring in diversified businesses. That is the most fruitful endeavor and best use of our time, energy and money. Diversification is important, and that’s the general direction we are headed.”
Jim Reno “In our county we spend approximately a quarter million dollars a year in
Yellowstone
County economic development of
taxpayers’ money. Basically we are
asking questions of our Big Sky
Economic Development Authority. We are
wanting to know if that is a good investment or not. My first question is: Is
that arrangement set up through the Governor for your office? Will there be a time when a measurement is
asked, “Is this a good investment or isn’t it?” My second question is:
We have heard your office described as the economic czar. Do you have authority in permitting, for
example, to have a truly one-stop shop to expedite permitting of industry that
may want to re-locate?”
“On measurement, I absolutely agree. Economic development and infrastructure are long-term goals. Sometimes it’s nebulous to figure out what you are getting. One of the things we will do in our plan is set out measurable goals and objectives to prove that economic development at the state level is a self-sustaining endeavor. They will be out there for public comment and review. There are no hidden agendas.
I hate that term “czar” because it is not how we work. The governor’s #1 priority is to make economic development work. Permitting and one-stop shopping is a part. Do I personally have this authority or power to force that to happen? No. The governor put people in those departments who support getting this State’s system simpler and easier to use in terms of all activities--permitting, taxing, granting. We’ve legislated that we will have one-stop shopping or central authority for granting, bonding and public moneys to support economic development, so I will work very hard so that this State is easy to use. Yes, it will happen. It’s a top priority. No, I do not have the power to force it to happen. It is never going to be perfect but we are going to make as much progress as we can to get the State easier to work with.”
CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION
Senator Max Baucus appeared
by way of video.
Representative Dennis
Rehberg was unable to attend. Randy
Vogel of his staff spoke on his behalf.
COMMISSION DISTRICT
BOUNDARIES
Susan Fox, Research Analyst, Legislative Services Division
“I have a background in legislative redistricting, but I’m going to talk to you about requirements for your county commission district boundaries. I was asked to cover the statutory requirements, but there are some bigger requirements that you also have to keep in mind, so I would like to start there.
We have constitutional protections for the concept of ‘one person, one vote’. That is the most important rule to follow in redistricting. It is found in various amendments to the Constitution and legal protection clause. US Supreme Court Justice White stated in 1968, “We, therefore, see little difference in terms of the application of equal protection clause and of the principles of Reynolds-Sims between the exercise of state power through legislatures and its exercise by elected officials in the cities, towns and counties.” So this does apply to local governments.
There is some flexibility, though, with local governments. The rule that comes for congressional districts is to be as close to zero as possible. In 1990’s, only one state had a deviation of 1% and most had under a 0.1%. Equal population is a mathematical thing. With local governments there is flexibility. There is no percentage standard for county commissioner districts. When we do legislative redistricting, we have a plus or minus 5% deviation from the ideal population. If you were to use that + or - 5%, you probably would be very safe. The Montana Supreme Court has stated that there must be an attempt to equalize population and area. You may not be able to reach mathematical equality, but you have to attempt to get as close to it as possible. For example, Park County has a population of 50,694 persons. You would try to get 5,231 persons in each of the three districts. Then with 5% deviation, you have + or - 261 people.
Another very important federal law is Voting Rights Act. Certain counties have already experienced litigation--Big Horn, Rosebud, Roosevelt, Blaine Counties--all reservation counties because that’s where we have significant minority population. All of you need to take note of the Voting Rights Act, even if you are not a reservation county, because we do have minority populations throughout the state. Once they become sufficient in number and geographically compact, you would have to protect the voting rights. No district plan or proposal for a plan is acceptable “if it affords members of racial or language minority less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” This is federal law and it is very important to protect minority voting rights.
For the statutory requirements for county commissioner redistricting, I’m going to be speaking for the most part for elected county official form of government. I will speak briefly on alternative forms of government, but the most requirements in law are with the elected county official form of government. These are all in Title 7. Section 7-4-2102 gives you the additional requirements that are necessary for redistricting.
“In every county, following each federal decennial census, the county commissioners shall divide their counties…” That is fairly clear. It applies to everybody. We had the federal decennial census on April 1, 2000. It takes about a year for the data to be delivered. By federal law, the Census Bureau was required to provide redistricting data by April 1, 2001. Many of you may be able to keep the same districts, but you should review them and see how close they are to that population equality standard and re-adopt those districts to follow the law. In 1985 Montana Supreme Court, in a Custer County case, held that mathematical exactness is required only when reasonably possible and does not preclude a limited amount of discretion exercised by county commissioners in dividing the county. Variation from a peer population standard can be justified for recognition of natural or historic boundary lines such as county commissioner districts, rivers, mountain ranges and different variables in our counties.
The requirement that’s unique to county commissioner districts is that the districts must be as equal in area as possible. Compactness is a standard redistricting principle. It is used at the congressional level, the legislative level and it is also a statutory requirement for county commission districts. Geometrically, the most compact form is a circle. It is not going to be possible to have three equal area circles within your county, but it gives you a notion of how to view this. Some of these computer programs have compactness scores, but in litigation the redistricting experts can’t agree on what they mean, so they are not going to be much help. The best test is the old eyeball test--How does it look? Does it look compact? Is it long, skinny and narrow or does it look as compact as it can be? It’s a general common sense criterion.
At a minimum, an attempt to equalize both area and population is required where mathematical exactness is not reasonably possible. You do have to make that attempt to equalize it, but there are those other things that come into play. “Such apportionment may take place at any time for the purpose of equalizing the population in the area such as commissioner districts.” The best time to know if your districts are substantially equal in population is right after the federal decennial census, but it can be done anytime, like mid-decade or later.
The second requirement is for three districts. In alternative forms of government you can have those different numbers of districts. The districts must be as equal in population and as equal in area as possible
The last couple of criteria are in terms of timing. “A commissioner’s term may not be affected by the change of the boundaries.” Even if you change the boundaries and then you don’t live in it, your term cannot be affected by that. You can complete your term. “The boundaries may not change within six months preceding the primary election.” For those of you who are interested in redistricting right now, the next primary election is June 4, 2002. If you count back six months, the changes should take effect by December 4, 2001.
“The district judge or judges, if there is more than one in the county, shall review the action of the commissioners to determine whether or not such action meets the requirements of this section.” You really do need all of your district court judges that represent your county to look at it. That came up in that same 1985 Supreme Court case.
Sections 7-4-2102 through 7-4-2104 MCA do not apply to counties that adopted optional or alternative forms of government. But I want to caution you. Those specific requirements--the Equal Protection Act and the Voting Rights Act--would still apply. Two of the four options that are allowed for alternative form of governments do apportion by population. Even though it’s not statutorily cited for the other ones, you still should make that attempt where it’s possible. Candidates should reside in the district and members may be elected by any combination of districts which are apportioned by population. The other standards would be valuable, too. Compactness is a standard redistricting principle. The timing issues are good guides. There have been two AG opinions, one that applies to alderman terms and one that applies to legislative terms, which concluded that you can’t change somebody’s term by changing the boundaries. These are good rules of thumb to follow for those alternative forms of government.
Other traditional redistricting principles include contiguity (your district would be in one piece), preservation of political subdivisions, preservation of communities of interest. With the equal area principle in county commissioner districts, those become a bit tricky. I just wanted you to know the other kinds of redistricting principles.
The recent Interim Education and Local Government Committee discussed allowing single-member county commissioner districts. Should the elected county official form of government have those same options to create single member districts as the do alternative forms of government? It would assist counties that are involved in voting rights litigation and would also give everybody the same choice. The only issue that came up is whether or not it should be submitted to the people for a vote. There is draft legislation if anyone is interested.
Many of you have Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It’s a tool to use census data and geographic boundaries. One vendor here is ESRI, which has soft ware called ARC. It has a districting extension that is a very simple standard redistricting tool. I use AutoBound from ArcView. Arcview is the state standard, so that’s why we chose it. There is another company, Caliper, with a program called Maptitude. You can load them on a PC. You can download the census data from the Census and Economic Information Center. I have bookmarks with the addresses available here.”
“ATTITUDE VIRUS”
Terry Fleck
A text of Terry Fleck’s
presentation, “Attitude Virus”, is available from the MACo Office.
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NACo
PRESIDENT-ELECT
KENNETH MAYFIELD
Dallas County, Texas
“Montana counties have a great history of supporting NACo. You have 56 counties and 37 counties are members. Of the 19 Montana counties that are not members of NACo, 18 of those counties would pay $360 a year for dues. I know $360 is a lot to a lot of counties, but it is relatively cheap for the return on the dollar.
I became a commissioner in 1995, the first Republican elected in Dallas County. In 1995 I attended the NACo Legislative Conference in Washington DC. I heard about so many innovative, cost-efficient, effective programs. From each one that I have attended, I’ve been able to bring information back home and we’ve been able to implement many of those programs. This has paid our $35,000 in dues back many times over every year. So while it’s a burden often for travel, you get more out of NACo if you can go to a conference or to seminars.
NACo’s strength lies in its membership. Our voice in Washington DC, to the White House and to Congress, is much more effective and stronger the more counties we have. We have over 2,000 of the 3,067 counties in the United States belonging to NACo. Our goal was to have 2,000 in 2000 and we hit that goal. We need to hit that 3,000 mark in a few years. You derive many benefits from NACo being in Washington DC and lobbying on behalf of county government. We would like your involvement because you could add to the 13 NACo steering committees to look at the different issues.
Two weeks ago, America suffered one of the saddest days in its history. At the time, NACo President Javier Gonzales and Executive Director Larry Naake expressed our grief and anger over the terrorist acts in a letter to county officials. We asked counties to pass resolutions condemning the cowardly and deadly actions and supporting the President as he works to defend against additional attacks, to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. I am happy to say I was here and witnessed your passage of that resolution. I would also like to ask you to take a leadership role in your communities to insure that Arab-Americans are treated fairly and with respect. Arab-Americans are not our enemies; terrorists are. They deserve the same respect as everyone else. Simply because they may happen to look like or be from a country that perhaps was involved in the attack does not make them the enemy. The events have affected all Americans. Many of us are angry, with good justification. We cannot let that anger overcome us. We must remain vigilant to prevent more tragedies in the future. Nor can we let good citizens become vigilantes because of their anger. It is important that we carry on. I think we have shown that in Montana this is exactly what you are going to do. That’s being replicated all over the United States with the leadership of counties and county officials in the forefront.
Today, I want to talk with you about how county officials can work together to solve the local problems that we face. You have a tough job. It is as difficult here as it is in Texas for me. It’s tough because no matter what decision you make, there is always someone who differs with you. One day it’s the media; the next day it’s a community group; and then it’s someone on your board or commission. On some days it may be all three, in a constant barrage, enough to make you want to quit, but still you persevere. You persevere because of your strong beliefs in public service and your positive approach to life. Let me share a short piece called, “Attitudes” by Charles Swendal. By the way I had this before we heard Terry Fleck; you will remember that he mentioned Dr. Swendal. He said this, “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important that facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. Attitude is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude that we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have. That is our attitude. I’m convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.” You know that your positive attitude can make a difference, but you also know that it is difficult to stand alone against obstacles and opposition. You need partnerships, sources of information, and opportunities for cooperation. You need to find new ideas and be innovative to find solutions.
NACo, as well as your state association, gives you the opportunities, partnerships and forums for ideas. You don’t need to stand alone. NACo enables you to join with other county officials to solve problems and to express in one voice the county government message. NACo is not the building in Washington DC or the staff that works inside every day. It is county officials like you here today, officials from counties in Oregon, Idaho, California, Kansas, Texas, Florida, etc. and it is state associations of counties. I am reminded of the story of two stone cutters who were asked one day what they were doing. The first stone cutter replied, “I am cutting stone into blocks.” The second stone cutter looked at this job with a different attitude. “I am working on a team that is building a great cathedral,” he said. I like to think of NACo in the same way the second stone cutter viewed his job. NACo is the collective cooperation of county officials working with the staff and the state associations of counties as a team. We represent all Americans as another voice in Washington for lower taxes and better and improved delivery of services.
America made history with our presidential election last year. I don’t know about you, but I’m extremely proud of our President. He may not have invented the Internet, but he’s got his initial all over it. Every time I go to an Internet site and hit “w, w, w”, that’s music to a Texan’s ear.
Following the election, NACo worked quickly to establish a good relationship with President Bush and his administration. We have had meetings with key administration staff and cabinet members. We still don’t know what the Bush Administration’s approach to county issues will be, but there are some very telling clues. His appointment of former Orange County, Florida, Executive Mel Martinez as Secretary of Department of Housing and Urban Development and former San Mateo County, California, Supervisor Ruben Barrales as Director of Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (and Deputy Assistant to the President) indicates that he understands that counties are important in the governmental process. Giving former county officials a prominent role in the administration assures that county interests will be raised on critical issues.
Another benefit for western states is Western Interstate Region (WIR). The next WIR conference is be in Billings, Montana, next May. I believe some of you have received your PILT checks and some of you have up to 30% increases. That was a priority issue for WIR. That is a tangible benefit, because while your senators and your congressmen and the other western states’ senators and congressmen are obviously supportive, you won’t get this done alone. You need the support of other states and their senators and their congressmen. We bring that to you at NACo. We cover every state, all the senators, all of the congressmen. You have friends and you have the benefits, so let’s get those 19 non-member counties down to zero.
It is difficult to know how the events that occurred on September 11 will affect actions by Congress. I think appropriations WILL be affected and consideration of some legislation may be delayed. The reauthorization of the Farm Bill is one which could have a great impact on counties. We would like Congress to do three things, either through the Farm Bill or other legislation:
1. Streamline the application process for federally funded programs; 2. Consolidate some of the more than eight hundred federal rural programs into a block grant for rural county governments; and 3. Increase federal investment in rural infrastructure.
Another direct result of the election in November is election reform. NACo opposes the Senate bill because of the mandates and urges revisions before the full Senate considers it. Two members of the House Administration Committee plan to introduce a bi-partisan election reform bill this month that does not include federal mandates, but provisions that we can support. Two election reform reports that mirror the NACo report are from the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and from the Constitution Project. With the various reform commissions making similar recommendations, it seems likely that many of NACo’s proposals will be implemented.
In another effort to improve the election process, NACo is launching a campaign to encourage Americans to volunteer to work at the polls on Election Day. A television public service announcement has already been produced. NACo is working to secure partners to support and promote the campaign. The partners would include other levels of government, corporations, the media, schools and colleges.
Another NACo priority issue--collection of remote or Internet sales taxes--is beginning to move. A House subcommittee has approved a five-year extension of the moratorium on Internet access fees. The Senate also is considering an extension. NACo favors bills in the Senate and the House that require remote sellers to collect taxes, if states and local governments agree to simplify sales and use taxes.
The House approved President Bush’s energy bill in early August. The Bill includes provisions to accelerate domestic oil, gas, clean coal, renewable technology production, and the hydroelectric re-licensing process and increases funding for the low-income energy assistance program. It does not grant federal agencies the authority to site electric transmission lines in counties, though it directs a study of the nation’s transmission infrastructure in consultation with states and local governments. Also included in the bill are provisions to implement a modest increase in corporate average fuel economy standards for cars, to allow exploration and development in portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska (ANWAR), and to provide tax incentives for energy efficient buildings and homes, all of which NACo supports. Two or three weeks ago the Alaska Municipal League invited the NACo officers to ANWAR to view what has gone on there and what the new technology offers for exploration. I enjoyed the information that I gathered from looking at what is there from the first exploration by the older companies and what will be there after new exploration. They have made significant, significant progress. NACo supports the President’s energy plan and supports limited exploration in ANWAR. The energy debate now moves to the Senate where a vote on the legislation is not expected until later.
NACo President Javier Gonzales has identified a number of initiatives that he is pursuing this year. Foremost is his effort on rural development and rural issues. Javier is planning regional forums on growth issues to identify problems facing communities and to develop solutions to help them. Other initiatives include closing the digital divide and raising literacy among Americans. The Rural County Government Center, a product of the Rural Action Caucus, was created to insure that there is a special emphasis on initiatives for rural counties. The Caucus focuses on rural issues and lobbies those issues on Capitol Hill. Participation in the Rural Caucus is open to all officials from rural counties. Officials are kept up to date about rural issues through a bi-weekly rural report from NACo.
The Urban County Caucus addresses issues important to the 100 largest counties in the country. This year’s top urban caucus priorities are to increase home ownership, improve health care and reduce juvenile crime. Urban County Caucus officials travel to Washington a couple of times each year to meet with members of Congress to discuss issues critical to them. NACo also provides a report to urban county members.
The NACo Cooperative Purchasing Program is another way that counties can save time and money by working together. The purchasing program offers amazing savings on computers, computer products, office supplies, furniture and more. The computer purchasing program, which includes major companies like IBM, Dell, Micron and the software spectrum, is saving counties and cities as much as $50 million. The office supply program through Office Depot saved local governments $35 million in 1999. This is accomplished by having a large county seek bids on specific products. Based on the expected volume, the prices on those products are cut drastically, providing great savings to buyers. Any county, city or local government, where allowed by state law, can then purchase those products at the reduced price.
Another new program enables counties to collect unpaid debt. Working with Lockheed-Martin, the collection company, counties can receive payment for child support payments, water, sewer bills and other money owed to them.
This year NACo launched a new exclusive member benefit with great success. The NACo ESRI-GIS technology grant program provides GIS software, data and training free to counties that apply for a grant. NACo and ESRI awarded 86 grants in July. It has generated more than 400 inquiries, 40 of those are from non-member counties. Counties must be members to participate. The program is of great value to counties. There are two levels of GIS grants--introductory and intermediate. The introductory grants are worth $15,000 and intermediate grants are valued at $45,000. NACo and ESRI will award 300 grants this year as part of the program.
In addition, NACo has a number of awards programs like the Achievement Awards and the Acts of Caring. These programs provide recognition to counties and county officials for their hard work. They also serve another purpose as a valuable resource of successful, effective programs. NACo’s research division keeps a database of successful county programs. You can save staff time and resources by finding out how another county solved a similar problem simply by contacting the research division.
As you know, NACo is a lobbying organization. But it is much more. It is an organization that brings together counties and county officials. Thank you for your support of NACo. Our voice in Washington and our ability to help counties are both stronger because of your support and your willingness to join with other counties in this effort. For those of you who are from counties that are not members of NACo, I encourage you to join.
In closing, I think Texas and Montana have a lot in common. I think we both are kind of frontier states on many issues. We both look at government with a jaundiced eye. Government is there to help with certain things, but there are times we want them out of our lives. We don’t need them. We are independent. I think that was illustrated as I was having breakfast at a café downtown in Glendive here the other morning. There was one person who was down at the end of the counter eating his breakfast. I was eating mine and was about finished. A third individual came in and sat between us at the counter. We couldn’t help but overhear what he ordered. He said, “Let me have a dozen fried eggs, half a pound of fried bacon, half a pound of fried sausage, some fried potatoes, gravy, and biscuits.” The other gentleman’s eyes got big as saucers. After this guy got his breakfast, the other gentlemen had finished his and paid. He walked behind the gentleman who had ordered all this fried food, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, “Sir, do you realize what all of that fried fatty food is going to do your body? Do you realize that you will be lucky to get up and get to the door without having a heart attack. Your arteries are going to be so clogged with all that fried fatty food.” The gentlemen just kept eating and looked back and said, “You know, my daddy lived to be 102 years old.” The gentlemen looked incredulous and said, “I’m from Montana Department of Health and you are telling me that your daddy lived to be 102 years old from eating fried fatty foods?” “No sir, from minding his own damn business.”
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BALANCE OF STATE JOB TRAINING CONSORTIUM
ANNUAL MEETING
Jim
Hunt, Chair
Jim Hunt and Tom Hayes,
Montana Job Training Partnership, Inc. staff, reviewed the past year activities
and the coming year’s projects.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ENERGY
OFFICE
Mike McCourt
“I would like to give a brief picture of the energy situation we have today and offer ideas on how you might help with energy problems within your county or a community in your county.
There is an excellent book in your packet. It has a fine description of the regional situation in energy and a piece done by Bob Anderson on Montana specifically. At the end of his article, Bob Anderson says, “This is a story with no happy ending--it is a story with no ending. The silver lining, if there is one, is this--with high prices will come renewed interest in and economic justification for conservation and renewables.” He could not have stated it any clearer.
The energy market, the energy crisis, and the general uncertainty about what will happen next is really not much of a problem after the mess on September 11. No matter how the dust settles on energy crises in Montana, we will likely still have power to homes, to run our businesses and to support our institutions. Energy, however, is an intricate thread in the fabric of life in Montana and our country. With this in mind, I think we have an opportunity and an obligation to be leaders in the effort to conserve our electrical and gas resources.
Let’s take a quick look at where we are today in Montana. As you know, energy prices are dropping as more supply becomes available. You looked at triple digit figures for wholesale energy before April, and then they dropped. One thing is for sure. There will be a default price set before July 2002. Until that default price is set and until Montana Power has a price as a gauge where the rest of wholesale prices can go, we don’t have a real good way to tell whether prices are good or bad. There is no reason to go out in the market at this point unless you know what price to beat. Right now the cost on the open market is between $22 and $23 per megawatt hour. If we continue to see drought conditions, transmission problems, or high demand from another state, we could again see prices skyrocket. So it’s very uncertain. The League of Cities and Towns has an energy purchasing pool. They are waiting to see what the default price is going to be, before they shop for open market energy at the wholesale level.
Referendum 117 specifically targets HB 474 of the last Legislative session that dealt with electric energy pricing. The Legislature said that Montana Power would be able to buy 500 megawatts at that time for $40 / megawatt hour. Well, that’s changed. The price is lower now. So there’s a lot of discontent out there, not only from elected officials but from the public in general. The referendum seeks to put the repeal issue before the people. Some other state leaders believe we should convene a special session to change the law now so that utilities can take advantage of lower prices and enter contracts that will protect Montana’s energy future. I think there is some resistance on the part of the Governor’s Office so I don’t know if that would happen. We have ourselves really in quite a dilemma. What are we going to do about it? What happens next?
Let’s take a look at this handout for a local energy program. It came from the Department of Energy and outlines a process that could save energy not only in county buildings but throughout the county itself. The first step is to determine how much you spend on energy. That’s a basic first step, even though you may find it buried in odd budget items. Step two would be to designate and create a lead office not only to look at your bills but to also to be the focal point for anything you want to do as far as the energy policy is concerned. Step three is link energy programs with community goals. I can’t emphasize more to get the county seat involved, to find their ideas about this and how can we make this work on a much broader scale. Step four is to build support for it. Get everybody to look at saving energy as a whole problem, not just one for your buildings. Five, find out what other counties are doing. For example, Missoula County has a facilities manager named Art Garner who is an unbelievable resource for you. Step six is to prioritize actions and develop a plan. You need to look at what the cost of options would be, what makes the options of benefit, funding, political acceptability, etc. Plan for what you know that you can do. Be really specific. You have short-term goals, that run between two and three years, and you are probably going to have long-range goals that go out to five and beyond. Step seven is to implement the plan. Step eight is to evaluate success and update the plan. It’s ever-changing. Step number nine, which local governments don’t do enough of, is to publicize the benefits. Let people know about it.
Finally, I want to just give you a few practical ideas:
1. Implement low cost / no cost measures such as turning off lights or turning down thermostats. Those things don’t take added technology, they take reminders to train people.
2. Gather ideas from county employees by having a contest to reward the best conservation and efficiency ideas.
3. Establish your procurement policy that makes energy savings a high priority. Some of you are probably familiar with energy-star products. It’s very easy to find the ones that are the most energy efficient if you look for that energy-star label.
4. Consider forming an energy purchasing pool in conjunction with MACo. The League of Cities and Towns, as I mentioned earlier, has an energy purchasing pool, as does the Montana School Boards Association. Both of them are good resources for you as you plan this.
5. Internet has so many things about energy and what’s going on, not only at the local government level. It’s like having a library at your desk, one that runs very quickly.
6. Train maintenance staff to recognize and to implement saving measures on a day-to-day basis. Northwest Building Operators Association is going to have a comprehensive six-day training session in Bozeman beginning October 3.
7. Talk to your utility about savings programs for your county buildings.
8. Consider ways to incorporate renewable energy resources like wind and solar energy into county operations. Montana Power is a tremendous resource and will help you when you call them on anything you have in mind.
9. If you haven’t converted to energy efficient lighting, do so now! I can suggest financing, without any cost out of the pocket, how to use Intercap. The savings will cover the cost of whatever you do and you can be guaranteed to save money by an energy service company.
10. Finally, examine your energy use and develop a county-wide energy plan.
I would like to leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein. ‘We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.’ “
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NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT <