Autumn is property tax season in Missoula County. Property owners typically receive their tax bills in the mail in early November, which can generate a lot of questions like “what are these specials funds and districts paying for?” and “who can I call with questions about my bill?”
Missoula County Clerk & Recorder Tyler Gernant joined the commissioners this week to answer these questions and debunk some myths. They also discussed the difference between countywide and county only taxes, property appraisals and how taxes relate to the county budget. Tyler also gave a brief history of recent changes to the revenue base for local government in Missoula County and across Montana.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!
Autumn is property tax season in Missoula County. Property owners typically receive their tax bills in the mail in early November, which can generate a lot of questions like “what are these specials funds and districts paying for?” and “who can I call with questions about my bill?”
Missoula County Clerk & Recorder Tyler Gernant joined the commissioners this week to answer these questions and debunk some myths. They also discussed the difference between countywide and county only taxes, property appraisals and how taxes relate to the county budget. Tyler also gave a brief history of recent changes to the revenue base for local government in Missoula County and across Montana.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!
All right. Welcome back, everybody, to Tip of commissioners. And I'm here with my fellow commissioner, Juanita Vero. And Dave Strohmaier can't be with us today, but we've got Tyler Garnett, the clerk and treasurer for Missoula County. Thanks for joining us, Tyler.
Tyler Gernant:Absolutely excited to be here.
Josh Slotnick:Yeah, we're going to talk about taxes, So, Tyler, could you start off by giving us an overview of your office and the different services your team offers?
Tyler Gernant:For sure. Actually, property taxes, while a actually a rather small part of what we do. Our biggest functions would be motor vehicle transactions. So if you title and register your car, then you're going to come down to our office to do that. That represents probably the lion's share of interactions that most people have with our office. We are also the clerk and recorder. And so any kind of land transaction that you have is going to get recorded in our office and also birth and death records. So if you need a birth certificate or a death certificate, you're going to swing by our office to do that. And then, of course, property taxes and property taxes or something that's for real property gets collected twice a year, once at the end of November and once at the end of May. But you'll only get one bill. So we send out a bill towards the end of October and then we collect payments at the end of November. And then once again the following year at the end of May.
Josh Slotnick:But for folks who have a mortgage, they don't
Tyler Gernant:No, the vast majority of folks are going to And the escrow company collects an extra amount of money that they then pull together in those two months of the year to pay your property taxes and they pay those in mass to us. So we get one big file with one big check and we process all of those at the same time. So if you're on a mortgage, most likely you have an escrow service that is going to be paying your taxes. And so when you get your property tax bill, which we are required to send to, you don't have a heart attack.
Juanita Vero:Like you said, Missoula County residents Can you clarify the taxing jurisdictions that a city resident might see on their bill versus someone who lives out in the county like up in Condon or down in Lolo?
Tyler Gernant:For sure. That's that's probably a bigger But the reality is there's a whole lot of different taxing jurisdictions that come into play when you're talking about your property tax bill. So the ones that you see that are the biggest is obviously the county and the city. If you live in the city, if you live in Condon or Lolo, you're probably going to see a couple of special districts in there. There's also a distinction. If you live in the city, you're going to see just general property taxes for the county. If you live in the county, you'll likely also see a county only assessment and the county only assessment is for things. There's a number of them. But the biggest example would be roads. So the county pays or the county maintains the roads in the county. They don't maintain the city roads. And so because the county isn't maintaining city roads, the city collects taxes for those, whereas the county roads that the county does maintain, the county collects taxes. And so the state legislature made a system within the taxing statutes to say that you only pay for the roads, basically, that you're actually going to be using, at least in theory. And so that's why you see those county only versus the county wide. And there's a couple of other services such as health, animal control, and then a permissive medical levy that go into those county only versus county wide.
Josh Slotnick:So make sure I get this right. So since the city is inside the county, if you live in city limits, you're going to pay taxes to the city for city services, but you're also going to pay taxes to the county for some of the county services. But if you live outside the city limits, you don't pay the city and you only pay the county for what the county provides you, basically.
Tyler Gernant:Yes. So you get the county only road If you live in the city, you're going to pay for city roads. So you're paying for that entire network. And there's just a lot more roads in the city than there are in the county.
Josh Slotnick:And you're also paying for elections that the county.
Tyler Gernant:And everybody across the county pays that district court. Our office is funded by the general fund, which is funded by all county residents. So there are services that the county provides that everybody gets to take advantage of and then there are some services that the city provides that are geared more towards residents of the city.
Josh Slotnick:And on the property tax information system, the money you pay goes to all these specific services. You can see if you live in the city, how much is going to the city. If you live in the county outside of city limits, how much you're paying for everything from animal control to the fairgrounds to elections.
Tyler Gernant:It's a great service and it's something I bills, but that's not something that they provide yet.
Juanita Vero:So what's the website for folks to look that
Tyler Gernant:If you go to itax.Missoula.County.us, if you have the ability to click on a pie chart and that's also where you can make online payments for your property taxes. So I guess I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't pitch the fact that you can make property tax payments online and there's no fee for paying with an electronic check, and the fee for paying with a credit card is the same as if you were to walk into our office and present a credit card to one of our clerks. So really, it's a huge benefits and convenience to be able to just pay online, especially if you look outside today.
Juanita Vero:It's snowing outside for those listeners. Can we go back to special districts?
Tyler Gernant:Absolutely. So special districts can be And the ones that you're probably commonly thinking of or fire districts are a type of special districts, mosquito districts. There's a water quality district, which is a form of special districts. So there's a whole host of different functions that a special district can do. But ultimately a special district is special because it provides a specific service. And so within the city you have a roads district and they are charged with primarily maintaining the roads. The roads are also somewhat general funded. There's a parks district within the city that is funded through a special district. And then you also have something called a special improvement district in the city and the rural parts of the county that are called rural improvement districts. And those tend to be for a specific item of capital, essentially. So a sidewalk would be a special improvement district. A lighting district is generally a special improvement district. Bridges can be built with special improvements.
Josh Slotnick:And those special improvement districts are They're not countywide, generally speaking.
Tyler Gernant:Exactly. The special improvement districts neighborhood. So if a neighborhood needs a bridge built, they can do a special improvement district to fund the cost of that bridge instead of fronting the money out right up front.
Josh Slotnick:Yeah, there's one in my neighborhood where a special improvement district, or an RSID, to get some roads paved. And I guess I'm only bringing this up because if folks live nearby, but not in that district, their tax bills are going to be different in terms of what they're assessed for.
Tyler Gernant:They are, and they're also not going to be paved or maybe they paid for their roads.
Josh Slotnick:It was already paved.
Tyler Gernant:Yeah, if it was already paved. A lot of times as subdivisions come in, paving roads is a requirement of the subdivision. And so you'll see one subdivision that has all their roads paved and one that does not next to it because it was there first. And so you can always come back and pave that road and do a rural improvement district to pay for the cost of paving it. And you can also then pay for the cost of maintaining it. So some of those are perpetual. They go on until somehow the group of citizens that are within that district get together and decide to end it because they no longer need to have their road plowed. However that happens, it can be ended, but for the most part they do go on and maintain those.
Josh Slotnick:So over the last handful of years, we've seen their cousin seems to want to live here. What does that mean for property taxes?
Tyler Gernant:Generally means your property taxes are going There's a lot of different facets to property taxes. And so over time, what has happened not just in Missoula but across Montana, residential property has taken on a bigger share of the property tax burden. And so you'll see that what used to be primarily funding local governments was these big industrial or commercial plots. The business equipment tax, which used to be a fairly broad tax, is now limited to equipment that's under 300,000. There's an effort to increase that exemption even more. So those things have slowly chipped away at the share that other types of property pay towards local governments and what has then had to fill that void as residential property. So your tax bill today is probably about 16% higher than it would have been in 2001. So in 20 years you're paying about 16% more in terms of the share of property taxes than you would have been 20 years ago.
Josh Slotnick:And the key word there is share of property So we're not talking about total bill going up or going down or going sideways, whatever. But the amount of revenue that went into the system, a greater proportion of it came from residential homeowners and renters than it used to due to this change in the business equipment tax law. And I think please correct me if I get this wrong, change to the kind of economic demographics of our county. I mean, this was a big active mill town and those are pretty much gone.
Tyler Gernant:Yeah. Over the course of about a three year base disappear in Missoula, where we lost the Smurfit-Stone mill, we lost the Bonner Stimson Mill and then the dam was taken out, the Bonner Milltown Dam was taken out and all three of those were fairly large taxpayers in that sense. And so while those properties still exist, Smurfit-Stone is a shadow of itself. The Stimson Lumber Mill has really started to regrow its tax base. Oh yeah. And so it's getting closer to where it once was, but it's still not there. But I think the other part that you're hitting on is this idea that property tax is going up because of property values. I think it's also important to recognize that local government funding is limited, so the funding of local government is determined by what you got the year before, and then you can increase that essentially by half the rate of inflation for the last three years. And so you're increasing your funds by right around half of inflation. The way that local governments have to make that up is by growth. And so that is ultimately what funds the majority of inflation for local governments is the growth that we experience in our communities. And so although you're paying a larger share, what local government sees isn't necessarily increasing by that amount.
Josh Slotnick:Also, over the course of recent history, I mean, this year we'll see three and a half million tourists in Missoula County. We have 120,000 residents. What does that do to property taxes?
Tyler Gernant:So obviously they utilize services and for services in a way that funds local government. So local government is funded through property taxes. So other than the fact that maybe you have more restaurants or more industries catering to tourism, those industries pay property tax. But that property tax is not necessarily directly causally related to the number of tourists. In other words, if if a restaurant serves ten people in a day, they're going to be paying relatively the same property taxes as if they were serving 100 people. So there isn't a direct correlation between the tourism that we see and the property taxes we receive. And so 100 people use use our services a lot more detrimentally. I guess I would say they're harder on the roads, they're harder on police, they're harder on all the things that local government provides than ten people are. But we're not necessarily seeing that in terms of tax revenue.
Josh Slotnick:So so so are you saying that locals are
Tyler Gernant:Absolutely. Locals are definitely subsidizing I think you can look back in history and see that when you had a lumber mill sitting in Missoula, that that property, they paid their own way. Tourism does not do that in the same way. Wow. On a statewide basis, the Department of Revenue appraises every piece of property across the state. That used to happen once every six years, and then they would phase in the increase in property value, which it was usually an increase in property values when you only assess every six years. What happened, quite frankly, is the 2009 2010 real estate bubble burst and values went down for the first time. But an appraisal had just happened and so people didn't get to experience the downside of values going down. They were only seeing the upside of values going up. And I think that frustrated a lot of Montanans that their property taxes continued to do this, phased in increase from that reappraisal, even though what they saw in real life was their value going down. And so the legislature changed that part of the law and made it so that there's now a two year reappraisal cycle. So every two years Montana reassesses or re appraises your property and there is no phase in if there is an increase in value in those two years, you see it immediately. If there's a decrease, you would also see that. But naturally, since they changed the law, there has not been a decrease in property values, which quite frankly is good for us. Right? If property values are going down, it's a sign of an economy and a community that is struggling. It's good that our property values haven't gone down, but for your taxes, that's not a great thing.
Josh Slotnick:So in county government, about a third of the So what's the link between property taxes and budget?
Tyler Gernant:Property taxes are a major driver. I mean, it's singularly probably the biggest driver of our budget, right? And it's the thing, more importantly that we have control over. So property taxes are the one area where you really do get to balance the budget. There are other types of taxes that we collect. There's the local option vehicle tax that you pay.
Josh Slotnick:What is that? I think a lot of people don't
Tyler Gernant:So when you register your car in all but six the depreciated MSRP, manufacturer suggested retail price, is paid as a tax to that local government. And like I said, it's an option. But it was implemented by all but six counties across the state of Montana. So that money does go directly to local governments. But again, it's not something that we control. If the economy is doing well and people are buying cars, then we get more money from that. If the economy is doing poorly or as is the case recently, it's been difficult to find a car to purchase. Then that money goes down again. That's something that we don't really have direct control over, but it is. It's a chunk of money that helps fund government. There are also a lot of payment in lieu of taxes that we receive from the federal government because a healthy portion of Missoula County is owned by the federal government. So we get those we get a number of other funding sources. There's also something called the entitlement share, which took back in 2001. I think it took a lot of the fees that used to be assessed by the county and combined all of those into one big pot of money. And then the legislature divvies that out to counties based on a formula.
Josh Slotnick:So my oversimplified sense of what the here was that we provide some functions for state government like a bunch of the work that happens in your office. Then we in a sense charge the state for doing that work because we have to pay people and create office space, etc. And the entitlement share is a slice of that money that we collect coming back to us to help cover our costs and providing that work.
Tyler Gernant:I think that's probably where people think it The genesis of that, it was called the "Big Bill" when it was passed, and the purpose of it was to take a whole lot of accounting functionality around these local fees. Right? So you registered a car and there was a fee that you paid to the local government to do X, Y or Z, and there may have been six different local fees put on to registering a car. And then the same for. Filing a document in our office. There were just all these different fees that were there. And the state legislature, what they said is, instead of paying all of these little one off fees that then the local government collects, but they have to account for it to state government, but then they get that money back. And so instead of money changing hands all these different times, what we'll do is we'll just increase a tax and we'll put it on there and we'll cover all of these costs in one item. And then when we collect all that money, we'll pull it together in a way that is supposed to be equal to what you were receiving before. We have this formula that we are going to then distribute that money out to local governments. And so it was meant as a replacement for existing fees. But what it turned into was, for lack of a better description for our our friends at the state. The state saw it as sort of a pot of money that they could raid when they needed to. And so the share that we are getting as local governments has gone down because it's easy to attack that and take some of those funds if you're the state government.
Josh Slotnick:Does that mean we provide these services at a
Tyler Gernant:It's not necessarily that we provide them at directly related in the same way that it used to be to whether we're providing the service. It used to be a one for one, right? If I registered a car and got this fixed dollars, got that amount of money, it's not quite that way anymore. It could be that also...
Juanita Vero:It just feels like that!
Josh Slotnick:So it could be dependent on the year. We could have a year where maybe people aren't buying new cars, so we might make out a little better or we could be super busy and actually not have those costs covered.
Tyler Gernant:It's possible. It is again, because it is still based on a lot of those metrics. So it's somewhat tied, but it's more of a generic funding formula than it is directly 1 to 1. This is how much you get. And the other part of that, too, was that the legislature was tired of having people come to them and say, Can you increase this fee? Can you increase this fee? And so they said instead of increasing fees one on one, each individual one, we'll just increase if we need to, will increase the entire amount. But functionally, that just hasn't happened.
Josh Slotnick:And we do here every couple of years. The is coming from more of the entitlement share.
Tyler Gernant:I mean, when when the business equipment tax it, part of what's the justification for that was well, we'll refund that money to the counties basically through the entitlement share. We'll give them a bigger portion of the entitlement share. And that's just one example. But it happens quite frequently where the legislature looks at the entitlement share and tries to tweak it little by little. So instead of them tweaking one fee, they're tweaking this big monster of a bill. That's the entitlement share.
Juanita Vero:Back to how this relates to county budget. So when our budgets change from last year to this year, this year, $211 million.
Josh Slotnick:Yeah.
Juanita Vero:And last year it was $173, $174 million. That difference doesn't necessarily that percentage difference doesn't mean that your taxes, your property taxes are going to go up by that same percentage because.
Tyler Gernant:No, most definitely not because and I think while growth helps keep pace with inflation for the county, growth also brings its own need for services, right? So when you build a new building and people are working or living there, there are additional services needed to provide for that building and the people who are going to live there. And so while it is true that the budget's increasing, that budget grows because there's a greater need for services and likewise, you know, there's just no direct correlation to that increase in budget to my personal property tax bill is going to go up by that amount. So I think there were a number of stories this year about how city and county taxes were going up. 11 or 12% is the ones that I saw. And for most folks, what they saw was closer to about 5% increase in their tax bill.
Josh Slotnick:Help me out if I get this wrong in. But my understanding is the property taxes make up about a third of the revenue side of our budget. And we saw certainly an increase in our budget. And that increase is not proportional to the increase in property taxes. Rather, it came from those other two thirds so that state money and federal money and then a grant revenue to. So we were able to be really creative and generate money from other non property tax sources. It looks like our budget went up. It did indeed go up. We have within our county the busiest clinic in the city of Missoula Partnership Health Center. There are part of the county, yet they're run entirely on a fee for service model, not property taxes. So their budget is built in there. They experienced huge growth in the COVID and immediate post COVID era. That money is in the budget. It's not in property taxes. Also, we were able to receive a whole bunch of federal money like lots of local governments. Receiving that money was also not on our property taxes. That was just on the revenue side, not on the expense side.
Juanita Vero:And department heads have been thrifty and
Josh Slotnick:That's a really good point. On cash savings means money that was already in existence in departments and they didn't spend it in previous years and they were able to spend it now. So it's not new property tax dollars, but it did mean people spent money. So Dave Strohmaier just joined us. He was back from saving a cat stuck in a tree in a blizzard, folks. Thanks, Dave, for taking one for the team there.
Dave Strohmaier:The cat is doing well.
Josh Slotnick:Excellent. Excellent.
Dave Strohmaier:Yeah. Better late than never, but great to It's good to. Be here. So a question that has been just burning for me. If someone in Missoula County has a question or concern about their tax bill, who should they talk to? And I'm assuming you? 24/7? It doesn't matter. They can knock on your door.
Tyler Gernant:Yeah, no. And that does happen all the time. So, no, it really, quite honestly depends about what their question is about. So they can certainly call our office and we can help direct that. But ultimately our office, while we collect the information and send out the bills, we don't set the tax rates for any of the taxes that you pay. So we have nothing to do with any of that. And we're going to end up just referring you to other people for the most part. So if you have a question about city taxes, you should contact the city at the county. There's the finance office often fields a lot of those questions. The same for if there's a rural improvement district, those are usually run through the county finance department. And so they'll be able to answer most of those questions. Schools, you'll want to talk to the schools. So there's a list on the website for Missoula County. If you do special district contacts in the search, then you'll be able to pull up a PDF that will tell you exactly who you should talk to about the specific question you have. And like I said, if you are having trouble finding that information, you can always call our office and we will direct you to the right person. But those are those are ultimately who you're going to want to talk to.
Dave Strohmaier:Well, and one specific question that we not trouble paying their taxes? What then?
Tyler Gernant:There are a number of assistance programs For the most part, those assistance programs require you to take advantage of them before receiving your tax bill, and that's by design with the legislature, so that people aren't waiting basically until they get their tax bill and then being like, Oh, shoot, I can't pay this, and now I need somebody to step in and pay it for me. There are also some additional property tax assistance that are privately run mostly through the Interfaith Collaborative in Missoula, and they can help out. And most of what they do, again, is connecting you to resources that will help you through this tough time. There is a sort of resounding myth that perpetuates itself out there that we come and take your property if you don't pay your taxes. And while that is technically true, there is a path for you to lose your property if you don't pay your taxes. It is functionally very untrue. In the eight years that I have been the Treasurer, we have lost one owner occupied home to a tax deed process and in that instance we make tremendous efforts. I literally would go knock on people's doors to try and find a solution for them to not lose their home. And in this one particular instance, this person just was unwilling to utilize any of the resources that we offered to them to try and help make make up those taxes. So it wasn't really an issue of that. They were unable. It was that they were unwilling, I would say, in that instance. But for the most part, we really do make an extreme effort to keep people in their homes.
Josh Slotnick:So the state has a program for older folks What's what's that program about?
Tyler Gernant:There's a couple of different programs. So there's the PTAP program, which is called the Property Taxpayer Assistance Program, which is actually not limited by age, it's limited by income. And so that's one of those programs where you do have to apply earlier in the year. And I'm not clear, I think that is either a march or a June deadline. But you do have to apply with the Department of Revenue. They run all of these programs. And essentially, if you are income qualified, then you will receive a reduction in your property taxes. And there's a healthy number of Missourians that do take advantage of that program and significantly can reduce their property tax bill. There's a separate tax credit for seniors, and that one is a tax credit on your income taxes. So it's related to your property taxes because it's directly correlated to your property tax bill, but you actually receive the credit on your income taxes, which can be a good and a bad thing. You pay your income taxes generally in April. And so that's when you're going to see that credit. But your property taxes are due in November and may. So it kind of falls in that weird in between. There's also some veterans programs, particularly if you're a disabled veteran. And then there's a couple of other programs that I feel like I'm missing out on here.
Josh Slotnick:But there's if somebody hears this and call your office and get a little direction?
Tyler Gernant:We would direct them to the Department of the Department of Revenue. So our office can't directly offer any of these programs. Just under state law. They go to the Department of Revenue. So they're direct line, if you want to get a hold of them, is 329-1400. Correct And they're a great resource to call and find out if there is not a know. If you don't qualify for PTAP, there might be a different program that you would qualify for.
Juanita Vero:Have we missed anything that you want to
Tyler Gernant:The biggest thing, like I said, there's finding yourself underwater on your taxes. And so absolutely reach out to our office. If you aren't qualifying for those Department of Revenue programs, let us know and we can see if there's other ways we can help. Likewise, if you would like to pay your property taxes and don't want to drive in the snowy weather down to our office to pay them, you can always pay online and we really strongly encourage that because. It also gives you an immediate receipt so that there is verification that we have received your property taxes and it reduces the amount of staff time for our office to process those because they're all done electronically, which then saves you taxes.
Juanita Vero:Okay. So one last thing. What's the the myth that drives you the craziest?
Josh Slotnick:That's a great question.
Tyler Gernant:That is a great question. There's so many of them.
Juanita Vero:Give us your top five.
Tyler Gernant:You know, one of them is the idea that bill because we send it out. And so we get a lot of angry people who call and are not necessarily kind to our staff because they feel like it's our office that sets their taxes. And we usually can get through that to a point where we're directing them to the right folks to talk about their issue. But it can be frustrating to have the first interaction with somebody, be them being really angry with you. We're also the motor vehicle department, so we're not immune from the idea that people just get upset having to come to our office at all. But that's a myth that persists. You know, again, it just isn't something that we do functionally. That's probably the most irritating one. The idea that we can do something about your tax bill and that we're just being obstinate and not doing it, we really just don't have that authority. And that's a function largely of the Constitution, because prior to 1972 there were aspects of the job that had discretion, and that discretion was abused by local elected officials. And so that discretion was largely removed in the 1972 constitution.
Juanita Vero:I didn't know that story.
Josh Slotnick:I didn't know that either.
Juanita Vero:Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Dave. Why don't you wrap us up with the last one? Because you just got here.
Dave Strohmaier:Yeah. And Tyler, you've probably been asked it again. What are you reading these days, if anything, besides email, which is my base these days. But have you, have you read a good book or have any other bits of wisdom to impart upon us in the podcast? Anything, anything out there in culture, anything inspiring?
Tyler Gernant:You know, I'm reading a book right now on I don't know that it's inspiring.
Josh Slotnick:So for the non Burton Wheeler heads out Yeah. No. Who was he?
Tyler Gernant:He was a senator from Montana in the thirties and was from Butte. And as you can imagine, there are lots of things when you're from Butte in that time.
Josh Slotnick:Thirties and forties.
Tyler Gernant:That are very interesting. I recently somewhat recently read the Home Waters book from John Maclean, which that was an extremely interesting book and sitting.
Juanita Vero:On my bedside table.
Tyler Gernant:It's worth a read and it is. It's really easy to read, actually. I think I read that in a couple of days, so I would highly recommend it to anybody out there.
Juanita Vero:But back to Burton Wheeler. What are the
Josh Slotnick:Or the cigar smoking? I think it's the cigar smoking.
Tyler Gernant:I hope... I hope...
Dave Strohmaier:I can barely see you through the cigar smoke.
Tyler Gernant:I was like, I hope there aren't a lot of He existed in a time of extreme corruption.
Dave Strohmaier:Was he a scoundrel himself?
Tyler Gernant:He was not, necessarily... I mean, as with most people in real life, there are good and there are bad things about him. And so I think he existed in a time of what I would consider extreme corruption in the state of Montana, when the copper kings still really had a stranglehold on our state. And he managed to navigate that in a way that I think is interesting in a good way in some ways.
Dave Strohmaier:Oh, you are peaking our interest.
Josh Slotnick:Yeah, I'm ready to read it.
Tyler Gernant:It's worth a read. Mark Johnson, who was a I mean, he worked for Cecil Andrus in Idaho. He was one of his top aides when Cecil Andrus was governor, and he started a public affairs company and now mostly does historic writing. But he's an interesting individual who wrote an interesting book.
Josh Slotnick:Cool. Good. Thanks for that. Yeah, Well, and thanks for joining us today.
Tyler Gernant:Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity
Juanita Vero:Thanks, everyone. We'll talk to you next
Josh Slotnick:[outro music plays] Thanks for listening to If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you like. And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them. The Tip of the Spear podcast is made possible with support from MCAD, better known as Missoula Community Access Television and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division. If you have a question or topic you'd like us to address on a future episode, email it to communications at Missoula County US and to find other ways to stay up to date with what's happening at Missoula County. Go to missoula.co/countyupdates. And thanks for listening.