Committee discusses solutions for state tax department’s billion-dollar appraisal backlog
Staff at Montana’s Department of Revenue told a legislative committee Tuesday that an audit report finding that the department has failed to add an estimated $1.2 billion of new residential construction to the state’s property tax rolls in recent years is accurate.
But, they said, fixing the problem may require the Legislature to authorize new funding, either for aerial imagery that could help state appraisers track development without time-intensive fieldwork, or to help the department get a handle on high turnover among appraisal staff.
“That is a real number. It is a real big number,” Robin Rude, deputy director of the department’s Property Assessment Division, said about the $1.2 billion figure.
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