![Dan Brooks [far right] with the Billings Chamber of Commerce plays a video in support of the jail bond and levy at the beginning of a jail tour as part of the Chamber's campaign.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9843940/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x3024+0+0/resize/840x630!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F91%2F6a%2F186a975b46a1a5948b11d48d8ed2%2Fdan-brooks.jpg)
This election season, 56% of voters in Yellowstone County ultimately said no to a multi-million dollar proposal to expand the county jail and fund its operation. The tax hike would have added just over $160 dollars to the fees of a home valued at $300,000 dollars.
While Yellowstone County residents are typically supportive of public safety investments, some voters like 75-year-old Republican John Whigham said they would not approve the increase.
“You gotta build some jails, but I couldn’t say yeah because that was gonna crank up my property taxes. It was a bad trade off,” said Wigham
The proposal was a big ticket item for county leadership this election season. The jail is frequently over capacity by two hundred inmates or more.
The Billings Chamber of Commerce ran a months-long campaign to raise awareness about overcrowding and the bottlenecks it creates across the local justice system. Dan Brooks with the Chamber of Commerce said based on voter feedback so far, the state of the economy may be to blame for the outcome.
“We just faced a number of headwinds, mainly property tax fatigue and kind of an economic malaise that people seem to be in right now,” said Brooks.
A fall survey from the Pew Research Center provides a snapshot of Americans’ feelings about affordability and found an increase in the negative perception of the national economy leading up to Election Day. Results found that over the last year more than four in ten Americans have struggled to afford at least one basic necessity like rent, transportation and healthcare.
