It takes no complex research to learn which part of the county pays the most taxes. The total market value and taxable values are available here and the webpage is fairly easy to use. We may have to resort to the 2010 Census to find numbers that would allow us to calculate the tax burden on a per capita basis – but the data are never perfect for the potential secessionist.
High School District 13 – Lincoln County High School – pretty well covers the north county (excepting the Yaak-Sylvanite area that is part of Troy’s High School District 1. Libby’s High School District covers the area that rules the county.
| 2021 | Market | Taxable | Percentage |
| Libby K-12 | $1,167,764,915 | 15,285,095 | 36.73% |
| HS-1 (Troy) | $561,686,888 | 7,578,222 | 18.21% |
| HS-13 (Eureka) | $1,324,462,346 | 18,742,346 | 45.05% |
| County-wide | $3,053,914,149 | 41,606,036 | 100% |
| 2014 | Market | Taxable | Percentage |
| Libby K-12 | $744,585,246 | 13,613,729 | 38.44% |
| HS-1 (Troy) | $354,443,745 | 7,059,404 | 19.93% |
| HS-13 (Eureka) | $705,406,090 | 14,743,434 | 41.63% |
| County-wide | $1,804,435,081 | 35,416,567 | 100% |
Extrapolating a line from 2 points isn’t the most accurate way to project a trend line. It does give a quick trend-line . . . and from this data, it looks like HS-13’s taxable value percentage is growing at almost half a percentage each year. Somewhere around 2031, the north end of the county will be over half the county’s tax base.
One way of looking at the situation is joy that we aren’t receiving all the government our taxes support. In general, our Libbyan bureaucrats don’t spend a lot of time in the north end of the county. On the other hand, the population in the north end isn’t growing quickly enough that we’ll be able to outvote them in my projected lifespan.
Perhaps it is time to get serious on the idea of county 57.
Trego's Mountain Ear 