Frontier Institute launches campaign for taxpayer budget caps in Montana
Frontier Institute's new tax-cap push would tie Helena budgets to inflation and refund overcollections automatically. The group says governments collected $6.85 billion too much.
Helena homeowners could see their tax bills tied more tightly to inflation under a new statewide push from the Frontier Institute, which wants government budgets capped and any over-collections sent back automatically. The Helena-based group launched Taxpayer Protection Now on Friday, saying the campaign is meant to build citizen budget watchdogs across Montana and apply the same rules to state, school and local government.
Frontier Institute, founded in 2020 and based in Helena, said its campaign is built around a May 26 report that found Montana state and local governments collected a cumulative $6.85 billion more over the last decade than inflation-paced growth would have allowed. The report put state government own-source revenues $6.04 billion above inflation-paced growth from fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, county own-source revenues $520.8 million above inflation-paced growth from fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2024 and municipal own-source revenues $286.6 million above inflation-paced growth from fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2024.
For Lewis and Clark County families, the fight is not abstract. A cap at the state, county, city and school level would limit how fast budgets can grow, then automatically refund any collections above the cap instead of letting governments keep the surplus. Frontier Institute argues that is the missing piece in Montana, where budgets must already balance but there is no rule limiting how quickly they can expand. The group also says school-district per-pupil own-source revenues were $24.1 million less than inflation-paced growth over the same general period, a figure it uses to argue that spending growth has outpaced what families can absorb.
The pitch lands in the middle of a broader property-tax fight. Republican state Sen. Wylie Galt suspended a separate property-tax-cap ballot initiative on June 9 after feedback from businesses, public officials and other individuals. His proposal would have capped local property-tax increases at 2% a year unless a property was improved, while exempting voter-approved levies and school funding levies.
That broader debate is still moving in Helena and across the state. A March commentary noted that 17 states have some form of supermajority or voter-approval requirement for tax increases, while Montana does not, leaving lawmakers to weigh relief for households against the cost of keeping schools, counties and cities funded at current service levels.
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