Tax Error by Computer Gives Electricity Firm a Jolt

The Montana Power Co. was just being honest when it reported that its property tax bill was too low by $2 million. Or maybe it figured the size of the miscalculation was so large that someone was going to catch it anyway. So, when a double-check of the Cascade County bill for $1.03 million found it to be exactly $2 million too low, the utility decided it was good citizenship and good sense to alert the county to the error, said Cort Freeman, a power company spokesman. “I think that was pretty nice,” Cascade County Treasurer Dick Michelotti said of the utility’s catch. Cascade County Assessor Charles Nebel said the value of the power company’s holdings is so large that the computer program that figures tax bills just didn’t compute. But, although the computer was generous, Nebel said he thought the mistake would have been caught eventually.

--In a scene that harks back to the “brat pack” film “The Breakfast Club,” students facing suspension at Elizabeth Ann Johnson High School in Mount Morris, Mich., are now being sent instead to “The Room.” The study hall, sans windows to cut down on distractions, becomes home for students caught skipping class or fighting in the halls. Punishment periods range from an hour after school to the equivalent of eight school days, and homework is the only activity allowed. “They are socially . . . segregated from the rest of the school. Our breaks, our lunch is off the regular schedule. In a sense they’re isolated,” said Margaret Conley, the room’s supervisor.

--Despite a public outcry, organizers of a dwarf-throwing contest between Britain and Australia are going on with the event, saying the little people are “professional projectiles” who do not feel degraded. The contest, beginning next Tuesday with matches to be held in three Australian cities, has sparked widespread criticism from many groups, including the Little People’s Assn. “It is degrading and sorrowful that promoters have to stoop to this sort of entertainment, but we have no scope to act on it,” Queensland Police Minister Bill Gunn said.

--Actor Ryan O’Neal committed battery on a moonlighting policeman but did not cause any injury when he threw a soft drink bottle six years ago, a Civil Court jury found. Brendan J. Campbell, 38, had claimed his cornea was scratched when O’Neal threw a bottle at a photographer outside the Pierre Hotel in New York in August of 1980, smashing the camera and sending a glass splinter into Campbell’s eye.