Trego's Mountain Ear

Last week, the topic was geography – how a county that was set up to work easily in 1909 became unworkable when Libby Dam split it into two disconnected pieces.  Essentially, the miles between Pinkham Creek and Jennings Rapids left the county disconnected.  Today, the topics are outgrowths of that disconnect.

Let’s start with the county’s tax base. The simplest way to look at the tax base is the county’s three high school districts:

Obviously, with Lincoln County’s government located in Libby, but the largest portion of taxable land in north county, there is a natural tendency to take more taxes from the north county, and deliver more services to the county capital.  If you recall The Hunger Games, you have a dramatized version of the problem.  The county population, split between the three high school districts, amplifies the problem:

Zip Code	Population	City
59923	9,545	Libby
59917	5,001	Eureka
59935	3,505	Troy
59934	763	Trego
59930	697	Rexford
59918	625	Fortine
59933	21	Stryker

Since Eureka, Trego, Rexford, Fortine, and Stryker are all in High School District 13, the relative populations are:

Libby 9545 (47%)             Troy   3,505 (17%)             LCHS 7,107  (35%)           

There is an incentive for the Libby folks (47% of the population with 36% of the tax base) to take more and give less to the north county folks (LCHS has 35% of the population and 45% of the tax base).  Essentially, the north part of the county is treated as a colony, to be a tax mine for the larger population in the south.

This isn’t to say that everyone in Libby and Troy wants to stick it to the folks in the north end of the county.  But when push comes to shove, the folks who work for the county in Libby have a tendency to look out for their neighbors a bit more than the remote tax slaves they don’t see – again, glance at The Hunger Games – it’s a bit more dramatic than Lincoln County, but the drama shows the trend.

The north Lincoln County tax base has been growing faster than the south county’s tax base – and soon the north part of the county will be paying over half of the county’s taxes, while the lion’s share of the county employees live and work in Libby.

This year’s issues have been garbage and the library – in both cases the county government proposal has been to reduce services to the north end while keeping the cash cow of the north flowing money into the courthouse in Libby.

Since our commissioners are elected by all the voters in the county, the one commissioner who represents north county is elected by the voters of the southern portion.  Basically, if he or she decides to “go along, get along” the north end will vote that commissioner back home after a single term.  If the commissioner chooses to stand up to the courthouse, those folks will send him or her back home after a single term. 

Our gut-shot county, with the lion’s share of the taxes taken from the smallest share of the population, is politically set up to benefit the county seat and exploit the north end of the county.  If we had conscientious folks at the courthouse who worked at treating everyone equally, our county government might work – but that isn’t the way to bet.