Sometime this fall, 254,000 homeowners across Montana will get checks for $400 from the state of Montana. Based on Census data, roughly 21,000 of them will be in Cascade County.

It will be interesting to see what effect the sudden infusion of more than $8 million of unexpected money in the local economy will have.

The money may be unexpected, but — as legislators who’ve been arguing for tax relief for some time point out — it does belong to the taxpayers.

The checks will be rebates on taxes, sent to homeowners in recognition of the more than $1 billion end-of-year general fund balance expected in state government by July 2009.

The rebates were a centerpiece of Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s ‘‘Square Deal with Montana’’ and subsequently of many Democratic legislators’ election campaigns last year.

Republicans, too, favored property tax relief, but they wanted it to be in the form of permanent tax reductions (to the extent anything passed by an every-other-year Legislature can be considered ‘‘permanent’’).

We suspect, however, that if Schweitzer hadn’t put forward the tax rebate idea, Republicans would have.

It’s the prudent way to give tax relief when you don’t know how transitory the state’s revenue spike will prove to be.

If after a few years the cash continues to flow, then cut taxes by any means.

But for now use the budget bulge to take care of some overdue needs; salt some away for a rainy day; and give the rest back.

Hey ... that’s what the Legislature did!