Tony Berget Interview

Lincoln County Commissioner Tony Berget is seeking re-election for a second term.

Berget, 50, has an extensive background in local politics. He served two years on Libby City Council before working as mayor for 11 years. In February he was appinted by Gov. Bullock to the Montana State Railroad Commission.

Berget is married to his wife, Trisha, and has two sons and one daughter.

How does the county balance the budget?

It is extremely hard. You have how much coming in and how much going out. We have been deficit spending for quite a few years. That is why I have been on a roll saying we have to make some cuts. We used to receive more money. We used to get $1.6 million in interest income off of our road fund. We did receive that this year at the last minute. When we did the budget there was no plan of getting that. Even with that money we are spending more than what we have coming in. Had we not gotten it, we would have been seriously spending more.

Was there an initial plan to rely more on reserves?

We knew we were going to have to. We have been for a few years now. Using reserves.

When you lose $1.1 million in interest income every year you see a 7.6 percent drop in what you get in Secure Rural Schools. The first year might not be too bad. The next year is 7.6 percent off of what you got the year before. That really compounds to be where that is a lot of money and, if you are not making the cuts, you are in trouble.

We get a lot of unfunded mandates that the federal government gives us or the state gives us. I guess even different state programs that they used to fund heavier, they don’t fund as well. Those are tough decisions that you have to say, how are you going to work this? We also look at what can we do for income. Government is not really in the income business.

What do you do to create an environment for economic success?

Multiple things. One, your county roads have to be really nice. Schools are always important. It is surprising, but I have gone to a bunch of those studies and they say your parks and your recreation are also a very big part. When a community has nice walking trails, like you see we have. We have an 18-hole golf course. I don’t golf, but I know how important that is. Tennis. The ski hill. Those are all little amenities that mean something. A lot of people look at a hospital and ask, can I get good healthcare? You have to get all of those things. When I was with the city, its water lines and sewer mains and things like that. Another thing that I try to work on is the infrastructure coming in. I guarantee you that Highway 2 Swamp Creek would not have happened if we had not worked our butts off.

What do you think is the greatest infrastructural need for Lincoln County?

Fiber optics. More Internet capacity. You would be amazed by the small little companies throughout Lincoln County doing business. We have lost some. They are leaving because they can’t get speed on the Internet. Whatever we can do to help to put those in. We would like to see that mill. As rich of a forest as we have, how can we not have a mill here? I was a big part of purchasing the finger jointer from Stimson when they were closing down. Otherwise that material would have been stripped and taken away. That was turnkey ready. We purchased it. All dollars are tax dollars. We also get a certain amount of money from the mines for economic development.

How do you plan to compensate the overburdened taxpayers in Lincoln County?

We are looking at lowering everybody’s taxes this year at 20 mills each year on the general fund to pay back the 60 mills that we over taxed. Over levied. We would like to do that over three years. That is kind of the framework. We can’t do the budget two years in advance. We are setting our budget with the thought of taking those 20 mills down. We can’t do it until we have had our public hearing and had a public hearing on our budget. This is our road map, but we still have to have the public hearing and then vote on it. The error was $2.2 million. That is what we are going to pay back.

Why are you running for re-election?

There are some tough decisions that have to be made. Like cutting the Justice of the Peace in Eureka. It is not something that you want to do. It is something that you have to do. You have to evaluate wants versus needs. When it comes down to it and if the road fund goes down to zero because we don’t have the fortitude to make the cuts that have to happen, I don’t want to be the guy on the ship that says, ‘Well, it is all over guys.’

If you are making tough decisions you don’t make people happy. There are a lot of people that are unhappy with me in Eureka. I made the decision that had to be made, even though I knew that there was a good chance that I would lose the election by making all of those people mad.

You said that it is a needs-versus-wants approach. It sounds like it is more of a case-by-case situation rather than across the board cuts.

We have three commissioners and each one of us has a different opinion. Mike (Cole) is more across the board cut thing. I am not. The reason I say that is that we have some departments that run on a skeleton already. We have cut them to a skeleton. To then turn around and add another 12.5 percent off of them. That is only half of it. You can’t cut the jails.

What are some of those departments you can’t cut anymore?

The nurses office cut down considerably. We also have taken the extension which is through Montana State University. The college pays half of that and then the county is required to pay half. We used to pay full time. We took it to half time. We have cut the sheriff’s department and we are talking about making some more cuts there. It is not like you can cut the jailers.

What kind of relationship do you see the state and the county and the city having with the EPA as they move toward more local control?

We have to control our destiny. What really opened my eye up to it is we were down in the state and Tracy Stone Manning and her bunch of department heads. The EPA is doing everything they can with the remedy to get a final decision to get out of town. That leaves it back on the state and county. Tracy said the people of Lincoln County better not think that they are not going to have a cost. I am thinking sorry. Too late for that. Lincoln County, you, me, all of us as residents the EPA and the state of Montana negotiated with W.R. Grace to get the funds to do the cleanup. You are not throwing that back on our laps. It’s not no, but hell no. We have to stay engaged and be ready for that. Be working with the EPA and be working with the state so that they are not leaving a cost to you.

There is a long history of relying on natural resources for economic sustainability here. Do we need more of that? Where else are you looking economic energy?

We get a fair amount, we get a lot of crap about Stinger, saying we messed up. You know what? I will take it. We are making the effort. Did we do it perfectly? No. Could we have done something a little bit differently? Could Carl Douglas been able to pull that off? Maybe. It is not like there are a ton of businesses standing at the Lincoln County border wanting to come in.

It is hard to evaluate what is good and what is not. Stinger Welding, when we were looking at doing that and it looked like it might have been some county money. Right now, I want you to know, there is no county money, per say, in Stinger.

I took my own money. I flew to Phoenix without telling them that I was coming. Went to that facility to take a look and walk it and see if it was a legitimate business. It was just before we signed. I walked in the building and took a tour. The building was rocking and rolling. The cranes were moving. There were people working. I walked out believing this isn’t just some scam. It was the best thing that I had seen come across our desk in a long time.

What would you say is the greatest accomplishment that you have achieved as commissioner? What would you say is your biggest self-criticism?

One that doesn’t mean a great deal in some ways but the splash pad over by the chamber. Every time I drive by that my thought is in different communities they have a splash pad and little kids were there and enjoyed the heck out of it. I thought, ‘We need to have something like that.’ It is those little things that sometimes mean a great deal. I am pretty proud of that walk path that we have over by Libby Creek. I am proud of the effort that we put in to get Highway 2 Swamp Creek done. I can tell you I can take a lot of credit for that.  

What do you think you could have done better?

The taxation error, it is definitely bad that it happened and we did it. Any time that you make an error and any time that you think you won’t ever make an error is tough. I really regret that we missed that and didn’t catch that earlier. I spent a little time doing math and looking at charts and getting a better feel today than I have in the past.

I do spend a little more time looking at the numbers, the math. There should have been a huge wait a minute.

One of many errors that I have done in my life that if I had to do it all over again, I would do it differently.

You said earlier that you weren’t expecting all of these battles with the fire departments. Where does that situation stand now?

We have already talked about having one fire chief for the whole county. In the not too distant past here we had Bull Lake drive through Troy to respond to a fire in the Yaak. That is not acceptable to me. I think I have tried to make that very blunt. Somebody has to be the chief on who dispatches. I do not have any interest in micromanaging fire departments.