Time for real answers from county officials

If you can break free from your usual obligations on Friday morning, you should stop by the press conference at Libby City Hall for a few minutes.

It’s going to be a doozy.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the accounting errors that caused some local districts to receive more tax money than their authorized limits may run deeper than The Western News’ investigation has revealed so far. In other words, the scope of the problem may be wider than we thought.

But we won’t know for certain until county and state officials stand tall in front of the public to explain how so many people who were put in place to oversee our tax dollars could have allowed such a big error to continue for such a long period of time.

Outlining the mistakes clearly would be a good start. Being completely open about how much money was taxed in error would be a solid second step. From there, they should probably explain what type of checks and balances have been put in place to avoid repeating the errors in the future.   

At some point, offering realistic reparations to the taxpayers who got overbilled wouldn’t be a bad idea either. A multi-year tax abatement is one idea that has been kicked around in recent weeks after it became abundantly clear that multiple county officials had, at the very least, neglected to uphold their fiduciary duty to the public.

Offering a refund to the taxpayers who overpaid is something that the county really hopes to avoid; after all, it would be nearly impossible to track down every person who paid taxes in one of those districts during the past 15 years. Some of those people aren’t even alive anymore, and many have moved away.

How our county officials respond to this taxation debacle will be particularly revealing. Will they take appropriate responsibility for the errors that occurred under their watch, or will they try to blame others as the November election approaches?

It’s been proven time and again that the voting public will forgive just about any mistake a government official could make, as long as that government official is willing to take full responsibility for the error and become part of the solution.

The correct answer in this case is that a host of people failed to provide proper oversight of the county’s budget. Topping that list are two county clerks, several state officials and all of the county commissioners who have served since the problem began.

Based on what has been uncovered so far, it would be unjustifiable to place blame on the board members of local districts. Representatives from at least three districts reported to the county that they were getting more money than they needed, yet the excess money continued to flow their way year after year.

County Clerk Tammy Lauer got one thing right early on in our investigation when she told reporter Phil Johnson, “This is a combination of errors.”

That doesn’t mean county officials have stepped up to the plate on this, though. For the past two weeks, there has been more finger-pointing and less transparency than when we first started digging into this story in early December.

To the county’s credit, they seem intent on determining exactly how deep this problem runs before they speculate any further. They want to determine internally, with the help of experts at the state level, just how many tax dollars have been levied in excess of voter-approved and state-mandated limits. That’s respectable. We should all try to be patient as long as real answers and a solution are forthcoming.

But now, nearly two weeks after state officials showed county officials the root of the accounting error, the people of Lincoln County deserve some real answers. And they deserve real leaders who have the courage to admit their mistakes and the fortitude to humbly present realistic solutions.

There are some wise people advising the county to bring clarity to the situation, fess up to the mistakes and put the county on track toward fiscal responsibility.

Let’s hope our elected officials are listening.

(Matt Bunk is publisher of The Western News.)