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Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 69
It's the time of year when it seems like everybody and their dog is hitting the road for summer trips, so we thought we'd take a look at which stretches of Montana highway rank as the busiest. As it turns out, according to data from the Montana Department of Transportation, the state's highway hot spots tend to cluster around urban areas. A stretch of King Avenue West in Billings just north of Interstate 90 has the dubious distinction of being the busiest road in the state, with about 40,000...
Homeowners across Montana received a nasty shock in the mail last month, coming in the form of state property reappraisal notices that generally indicated the 2023 valuations used to calculate property taxes have spiked over the two-year reappraisal cycle. It’s unlikely those valuation increases, 46% on median statewide, will translate into equivalent increases when country treasurers mail out actual property tax bills this fall. That’s because the tax estimates included on the reappraisal notices don’t account for how across-the-board value...
If you’re fortunate enough to own a home in Montana, keep an eye out in the coming weeks for a reappraisal notice from the state Department of Revenue that will tell you how much the property value used to calculate your tax bill has changed over the last two years. Given Montana’s soaring housing prices, those notices may cause a few heart attacks. Revenue analysts told lawmakers last November that they expected residential property values to in-crease by a whopping 43% on average between 2022 and 2023. It’s tricky, however, to tell precisely... Full story
by Eric Dietrich Montana Free Press This is news to no one: Montana is facing a historic housing crunch. Population growth, much of it driven by in-migration, has spurred demand for homes and apartments beyond available supply in many if not most of the state’s communities. According to real estate website Zillow, the state’s typical home value was nearly $428,000 as of March, up from $267,000 at the beginning of 2020. Higher rents, too, make it increasingly hard for businesses to find workers. In particularly tight markets such as Boz...
Gov. Greg Gianforte is pushing for revisions to a proposed ban on the social media platform TikTok passed by the Legislature this month, suggesting the bill's backers amend its provisions to apply to all social media platforms that allow users' personal data to be provided to nations classified as "foreign adversaries." The change, Gianforte's office has argued, would make the ban easier to defend from court challenges. However, the governor's staff has also told the ban's supporters that he is...
A slate of zoning bills intended to spur home construction by limiting how local governments can regulate housing development appears headed toward passage following votes on the floor of the Montana House in recent weeks. However, bills that would put money from the state’s $2.5 billion budget surplus toward housing affordability remain in limbo as the Legislature enters the final weeks of its 2023 session. Home prices and rents have soared across Montana in recent years, in part because rapid in-migration has crowded the state’s finite supply... Full story
The Montana House followed the lead of the state Senate Thursday to endorse a statewide ban on the social media platform TikTok. Senate Bill 419, sponsored by Rep. Shelly Vance, R-Belgrade, would bar the platform's China-based parent company, ByteDance, from allowing "the operation of tiktok by the company or users" inside Montana's "territorial jurisdiction" as long as the platform is owned by a company based in China or another country designated a "foreign adversary" by the federal... Full story
Flanked by dozens of Republican lawmakers on the steps of the state Capitol, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a tax cut, rebate and spending package totalling more than $1 billion last week. The eight-bill package, which provides short-term property and income tax rebates and also cuts state income taxes on an ongoing basis, puts a major slice of the state's estimated $2.5 billion budget surplus toward what the governor called "the largest tax cut in Montana history." The bills also cut the state's... Full story
There’s broad bipartisan agreement in the Montana Capitol that rising housing costs, driven by the state’s finite supply of homes and rapid in-migration from other states, rank among the most pressing issues facing Montana residents. According to real estate website Zillow, the typical home price in Montana was $430,000 in January, a slight dip from last summer, but an increase of nearly double in five years. Anecdotal evidence indicates that rents are also a major pain point for many residents, particularly in tight markets around Boz...
The Montana Senate voted Thursday to advance a statewide ban on Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, calling the service a threat to privacy, national security and public safety. The text of Senate Bill 419, sponsored by Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade, says the platform's data collection practices, combined with the potential for that data to be shared with the Chinese government, harm Montanans' privacy. It also says public safety is jeopardized by how the platform spreads viral... Full story
A bill heard Tuesday at the Montana Legislature aims to increase the number of modestly priced homes available to Montana residents by reining in the power of city and town governments to require that new homes be built on properties of a certain size. House Bill 337, sponsored by Rep. Katie Zolnikov, R-Billings, would dictate that local governments can’t require minimum lot sizes bigger than 2,500 square feet in areas served by municipal water and sewer systems. It’s among the first major proposals to come before this year’s Legislature that... Full story
As lawmakers negotiate Montana's next state budget this winter, the Republican-controlled Capitol has a once-in-a-generation windfall to spend - the state's $2.5 billion surplus. Naturally, opinions on what to do with the pile of cash vary. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte has proposed a budget that would fill the state's reserve accounts, patch up health and social service programs, and put $525 million into short-term property tax rebates. Various factions within the legislative GOP have their o... Full story
Standing in front of a luxury apartment complex under construction in Bozeman Thursday, Gov. Greg Gianforte touted his efforts to address Montana's housing affordability crunch by promoting new residential development. Flanked by construction industry leaders and hi-viz-clad apprentice tradespeople, the governor's press conference focused on his administration's decision to bolster the state's skilled construction workforce by letting companies train more apprentices. He also pointed to the...
A task force charged with identifying solutions for Montana's housing crunch formally passed recommendations for legislative action to Gov. Greg Gianforte Wednesday, teeing up debates over state subsidies and local control that appear likely to play out as specific housing bills are considered by lawmakers this winter. The group, appointed by the governor in July, had been asked to recommend measures that could be implemented by the Legislature to reduce the burden placed on many Montanans by... Full story
A draft report released last week by Gov. Greg Gianforte's housing task force details a slew of ideas to boost housing supply in an effort to tackle Montana's affordability crunch, previewing legislation that could be advanced by the governor and lawmakers during next year's legislative session. Several of the task force's recommendations involve scaling back local zoning restrictions such as minimum lot sizes, building height limits and parking requirements to make it easier to develop more... Full story
As Gov. Greg Gianforte described the job facing his newly convened housing task force Wednesday, he made a point of asking the group's 26 members to think outside the box as they spend the next several months working to identify the root causes of Montana's housing crunch and propose solutions for consideration by the governor and state Legislature. "When it comes down to it, the health and well-being of all of our families, and our communities, our businesses, our economy, rely on affordable... Full story
A proposed property tax cap and three other ballot initiatives supporters had hoped to put before Montana voters in November's general election are dead in the water after failing to meet signature-gathering thresholds, their respective backers have said. The failed proposals included CI-121, which would have amended the state Constitution to dramatically reconfigure Montana's tax system by capping residential property taxes. That initiative, sponsored by Bozeman attorney Matt Monforton and... Full story
Gov. Greg Gianforte's Return to Work bonus program, announced last year as he scaled back expanded pandemic unemployment benefits, ultimately paid about one-fourth as many bonuses as the state initially funded, according to a new post-program report from the state Department of Labor and Industry. The program delivered $1,200 payments to workers who were on the state's unemployment rolls as of May 1, 2021, and subsequently held new jobs for at least four weeks. It ultimately paid bonuses to 3,05... Full story
The root cause of Montana's increasingly stifling housing market? Too few homes to go around, a researcher told a legislative committee studying the state's economic condition Monday. "There is by any metric an enormous housing shortage in this state," Alex Horowitz of Pew Charitable Trusts said in a presentation to the Legislature's Financial Modernization & Risk Analysis Study committee. "There has been an increase in population that has outstripped the increase in homes." The rub, Horowitz... Full story
HELENA - With a final vote Friday, Montana's Districting and Apportionment Commission made it official: The state has a new congressional map, political lines drawn to define how Montanans are represented in the U.S. House through the 2030 election. While the boundaries could still be subject to a court challenge, the vote represents the likely culmination of a monthslong districting process that kicked into gear when detailed 2020 census results were published in August, triggering a... Full story
The state's first major winter storm dropped snow on parts of southern Montana early this week, signaling the final act of an active fire season that had prompted Gov. Greg Gianforte to issue a wildfire emergency declaration in July and mobilize hundreds of National Guard troops to assist in suppression efforts. Nearly 940,000 acres have burned across the state this year, the highest tally since the record-setting 2017 season that prompted lawmakers to revisit their budget. Part of the season's...
An effort to divide Montana into two districts for U.S. House elections over the next decade now has a set of nine finalist maps — and an unmistakable partisan divide. The maps were advanced this week by the Montana Districting and Apportionment Commission, which is up against a Nov. 14 deadline for drawing the new congressional districts. Commissioners, who said they adapted their proposals after reviewing dozens of unique maps submitted by members of the public, are looking for additional public feedback in the coming weeks. In addition to a...
HELENA - The commission tasked with dividing Montana into two U.S. House districts for the first time since the 1980s asked the public for input last month. Montanans responded with an earful, submitting 231 proposed maps, some of them duplicates, and more than a hundred pages of written comment as of an initial deadline this week. The proposals are, literally, all over the map. They include efforts that group most of the state's urban areas into a single district and divide the state... Full story
An initial round of funding drawn from Montana’s share of the March federal coronavirus relief bill is heading toward 86 water and sewer projects around the state. The awards, totalling nearly $127 million, were formally announced Thursday by Gov. Greg Gianforte. They follow an allocation process that was outlined by the Montana Legislature this spring in which project applications were submitted by local government entities, ranked by staff at the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and reviewed by an advisory committee last m...
HELENA - State Budget Director Kurt Alme, Gov. Greg Gianforte's top fiscal adviser, will leave his position Oct. 1, less than a year after being named to one of the highest-profile roles in state government. In a statement released by Gianforte's office Tuesday, Alme cited family considerations, specifically the strain of commuting to the state capital from his home in Billings. He will be replaced by Sen. Ryan Osmundson, R-Buffalo, a longtime lawmaker who has for years played a central role in...
