January 11th was the deadline for Glacier County Treasurer, Mary Ann Boggs. With a certified recall petition against her, Boggs had the option of either resigning or writing a 200 word rebuttal as to why she should not resign and has chosen the latter. That rebuttal is public information and should be released in the near future.

Glacier County assistant election administrator Jocko Parrent says the next step in the recall process involves filing a written plan to the Secretary of State, but with a lot of detail to be covered, he estimated that an actual recall election would not take place before April.

The recall petition alleges, among other things, that Boggs has violated her oath of office by failing to discharge her duties and committed official misconduct by negligently failing to perform mandatory duties includig submitting cash reports in a timely manner, submitting revenue report and revenue to school districts as well as failing to respond to public record requests.

Meanwhile, Glacier County Commissioners, meeting in Browning Tuesday, took no action on a proposal to pay the Great Falls Audit firm $165,000 to help the Treasurers' office catch up. Commissioner Michael DesRosier said "we took no action and really are just leaving it in the hands of the County Attorney."

DesRosier noted that "as commissioners, we don't really have a lot of influence over and elected official (Boggs), we too are trying to find out a lot of information such as just how many taxes have been paid under protest in Glacier County and why." He said the schools, where 70% of the property taxes go, will face the biggest impact of that.

More From KSEN AM 1150