Susan McDaniel Havre Daily News smcdaniel@havredailynews.com
A public meeting was held Monday night where a special committee addressed what would be done about this year’s assessment for the Bullhook and storm sewer maintenance districts. Only this year’s assessment was discussed. How to handle the assessments in the coming years will be decided at a later date. A special comittee, consisting of Gerry Veis as chair and Terry Schend, Allen “Woody” Woodwick, Jack Brandon and Robert Kaftan as members, was appointed at the last City Council meeting to look into how these maintenance districts are assessed. The discrepancy in how properties were assessed was discovered by the employees of the Public Works Department. Previously, large tracts of land within the city limits were assessed only for a small portion of the total square footage of the tract. The amount of the street frontage multiplied by 150 feet gave a square footage amount that the assessment was based on. The remainder of the tract was considered undeveloped land and not assessed. When the total square footage was added together and assesed in the same manner, it resulted in a very large jump in the amount of taxes owed by certain homeowners. Examples of a large tract of city property are the land where the old Coca Cola plant and District IV Humand Resources Development Council are located. A random sampling of lots in Havre, including residential and commercial, showed that most were being assessed on an amount per square foot of property, so the problem did not affect the majority of homeowners in Havre. Changing the assessment for this year will Impact the projected cash flow that the city will have to work with, because mill rates were set at the higher value and cannot be changed at this point in the year. A mill is 1/10 of $.01 or $.001 one thousandth of a dollar. A mill levy is the number of dollars a taxpayer must pay for every $1,000 of assessed value. Motion was passed unanimously to set this year’s assessment for Bullhook and storm sewer maintenance districts in the same manner as last year square footage times the current rate. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Dec. 4 at 7 p. m
