Silver Bow County study commissioners devoted a major portion of their Nov. 17 meeting to the governance of volunteer fire departments, legal precedents on ownership of apparatus and buildings, and the fiscal consequences if volunteer departments were removed from the county charter.

Commissioner Matt provided a legal overview and cited a 2021 Montana case involving the city of Ekalaka and its volunteer fire department, which he said found municipal ownership of commingled apparatus under similar facts. He told the commission that disputes over whether specific vehicles, buildings or equipment are titled to the volunteer departments or to the county are common and that resolving ownership could lead to courtroom adjudication.

Matt said volunteer departments currently receive funding from multiple sources — county tax dollars via the fire-district tax, grants, donations and department fundraising — and that removing volunteers from the charter would likely require them to levy special mills to raise operating funds themselves. He also referenced Montana Attorney General opinions from the 1990s about taxing authority and noted the potential for perceived "double taxation" if county levies and independent volunteer levies overlap.

Commissioners asked staff to provide a complete list of apparatus and building ownership; Matt said Zach Osborne, director of fire services, has the inventory. Commissioners also raised questions about which map defines the fire-district boundary (some referenced the county's fire-district map and others the decennial "urban boundary" used in planning), how expansion of districts occurs under state statute, and whether shared insurance, workers' compensation and retirement obligations would follow a separation.

Several commissioners emphasized alternatives to wholesale charter deletion, including ordinance-level changes, integration approaches or more limited clarifications; one commissioner noted survey results showing the largest public response favored integration rather than giving volunteers their own budget authority.

No formal vote on removing volunteer fire departments from the charter occurred. The commission asked the fire-department working group and staff to gather equipment lists, clarify maps and return legal and fiscal analyses for future deliberation.