State News

Mark your calendar for the second biennial Montana Water Summit, March 3-4 in Helena! The goal of the Montana Water Summit is to provide information, spur discussion and explore solutions in a statewide forum to help Montanans address critical tensions at the nexus of land and water planning, management and policy.

Montana DNRC’s Energy Summit will take place February 13, 2020 at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center. The summit was designed for farmers and ranchers to help them understand their property rights and land reclamation options when negotiating surface agreements with oil/gas, wind, solar, or utility companies.

For every Montana resident counted, the Census estimates the state will receive nearly $2,000 per person each year in federal funding. The $20,000 per person coming into the state over the next decade is used across Montana counties for medical assistance, educational programs, need-based support, infrastructure, highway planning and over 300 other programs. Spending just a few minutes to complete your Census form will help ensure Montana gets its fair share of federal funding. Filling out the form is quick, easy, safe and important.

The Montana Department of Revenue has calculated the entitlement share growth factor for Fiscal Year 2021. For cities, counties, and consolidated governments, the growth factor for the entitlement share will be the maximum factor allowed by law.

In 2013, the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy put Advanced Authentication (AA) requirements in place. To date, many agencies and organizations haven’t implemented this security requirement. AA requires the use of two of the following three factors of authentication: something you know (e.g. password), something you have (e.g. physical, like a hard token), something you are (e.g. biometric).

$2.5 million is available for 9-1-1 grant awards for state fiscal year 2020.  The grant process will begin after January 1, 2020, when a  notice for the application submittal time period will be issued and grants will be awarded by June 30, 2020.

Local governments must submit formal notification to the department of the creation or change to a taxing jurisdiction or special district by January 1 of the year in which the taxes or fees are to be assessed per 15-10-321, MCA and 7-11-1014, MCA. The department recognizes signed resolutions as formal notification. Supporting documentation includes, at a minimum, a map and parcel information.

The Montana Department of Revenue (DOR) has finished calculating the number of mills for fiscal year 2020 that the board of county commissioners and other authorized government entities may levy upon all property in the state. 

The maximum statewide school equalization levy remains at 95 mills.  The maximum statewide university system levy remains at 6 mills.  The maximum vo-tech mill levy remains at 1.5 mills.

Montana statute provides that money deposited into the mineral impact account shall be distributed to local governments according to MCA 17-3-240 & 17-3-241. The distribution to eligible counties is based on the proportion of the total amount of revenue generated by mineral extraction in an eligible county to the total money received by the state. The total amount to be distributed to the counties from fiscal year 2019 is $6,731,148.37 A list of the distribution amounts is also attached.