Trego's Mountain Ear

As the county commissioners get ready to look at building a new facility to house county employees in Libby, it seems appropriate to look at some numbers again.  The most convenient way to split the county is to look at the three high school districts (let’s ignore the fact that Libby is a combined district – for our purposes that doesn’t matter.

Population-wise, the 2020 Census bailed on giving us data based on school districts – but it’s not a big problem.  Lincoln County’s population is roughly 20,000 people.  About half of those live in the Libby school district.  Roughly a third live within the boundaries of Lincoln County High School.  The remaining sixth are in the Troy High School District. 

The county is funded through property taxes – and, checking online, we find that the market value of property in Lincoln County is $4,492,948,292 – a smidgeon short of 5 billion dollars.  So let’s look at that in terms of school districts:

So let’s look at who pays for a new county building in Libby – 

Awesome.  So it’s time to do another calculation – figuring out how many cents on each dollar spent on the proposed Libby edifice come from the average taxpayer in each district:

County Taxable Value:           $60,158,808

For convenience, let’s assume that the new county edifice will cost a million dollars – I know I’m lowballing, but round numbers will make it easier to adapt when those people come up with their demands.  And it fits with the percentages.

I don’t know – just pencil-whipping things out, it looks like a new county building will cost me twice as much as it costs the Libbyans who will work in it.  I already know that those of us in the North half of the county get half the service.  Frankly, I’d prefer my tax dollars went for a building in Eureka . . . one that we could still have when we eventually secede and become County 57.