Budget deliberations will continue in Budget and Finance committee on August 16, 2023.
City Council final consideration of the budget will be on August 21, 2023.
Mayor Jordan Hess We will move into our public hearings and we have three of them and we'll take them in the order listed. The first public hearing is our Fiscal Year 2024 Executive Budget. This public hearing opened last week and we had an extensive staff presentation and we've had presentations to council over the last six to eight weeks through with an extensive presentation tonight but we will have a brief recap and again opportunity for continued feedback. The public hearing will close tonight but we'll of course continue to take public feedback until final consideration of the budget which is slated for next Monday, August 21st. With that I’ll turn it over to Mr. Bickell for an introduction and then I will go back through a portion of my budget letter and then we will we'll wrap up with closing our public hearing and having uh discussion among council members. Mr. Bickell.
Dale Bickell Thank you Mayor. Dale Bickell, the City's Chief Administrative Officer. For my portion of the presentation I'm just going to talk about where we are in the budget process and really what's left. Here is the slide of the entire budget process I mean these boxes we are in today August 14th in the green slide which is the continuation of the public hearing on Wednesday, is our final Budget and Finance Committee meeting and at that meeting will be some further updates. Council members will talk about that in a little bit. Again August 21st as the Mayor said Final Consideration on the budget. August 28th and subsequent meetings are actual fixing of the levies based on that adopted budget and then throughout the year there will also be budget amendments and changes to the budget. The next slide shows what motions are and actions Council will take related to the budget. Related to this budget public hearing we talk about the budget but that means a variety of things. So it's fixing the annual appropriations, the budget, what is the spending that the city would do, but it also takes into account related items such as the permissive methyl levy, some fee increases such as the Public Works Utilities increases that you just heard. It adopts budget work plans related to certain Special Districts and related entities such as the Road and Park District, Tourism Business Improvement District, and then there's a list of resolutions that go along that document those approvals are listed there. So the approvals resolution, resolutions fixing the levies, and the resolutions creating the fees. So up next Wednesday is the Budget and Finance Committee meeting and up there on the screen are the items that we presented, so we have our presentation so it's going to be a review of where we were at to date and what's included in the FY 24 Budget. We'll do a property tax analysis where we're going to look at things such as newly taxable property and changes, significant changes, in the tax base that we're seeing. Talk about tax increment financing and where those numbers came in and in proportion to the entire budget. We always do some peer-city comparisons so we'll have that and then Council deliberations on the Mayor's budget and budget changes that are coming.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you and could you just go back to the title slide. I've been saying this throughout our budget process, I think a lot of us have been and a variety of other elected officials from various levels of government have been saying this as well. There was a great forum today at the City Club on property taxes and how we got to where we are and where we might need to go. I'll just say for context that our property tax system in the state of Montana is fundamentally broken. It is based on an economy that doesn't exist anymore and it is the framework unfortunately that we have to fund local government. Back in the 1980s we had four lumber mills that were operating multiple shifts per day, paying high industrial property taxes. We had low residential property values and we didn't have any tourists. We didn't have very many tourists anyway. Today we don't have that industrial-based economy, our property values as you all know are soaring and we have three and a half million tourists annually in the city of Missoula according to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation research. Our property tax system is based on an economy doesn't exist anymore and we're continually trying to wedge a square peg into a round hole. That is problematic. That is reflected in this budget and that is probably a reason why there are some folks in the room tonight. We continue to face fiscal challenges at the City of Missoula. Despite making significant headway last year our ongoing expenditures continue to exceed our ongoing revenues and again this is a function of our revenue sources. We are almost exclusively reliant on property taxes and our funding needs continue to go up. Could you go to the inflation slide please? We have seen significant inflation across various areas of city government. These are just some anecdotal examples of this. We'll go into this at our Wednesday committee meeting in much more detail and we'll cover this in greater depth. But as I said last week inflation is eating us alive. It is absolutely
the biggest single challenge in this budget, is the rate of inflation for a number of the goods and services that local governments rely upon have gone up at a rate that is greater than and what is already an elevated rate of inflation. So in in six years we've seen a 72% increase in the cost of emulsified asphalt. We've seen a 52% in our fire department calls for service. We are permitting more dwelling units than ever which of course has general fund implications in addition to our building fund and some of the other non-tax supported funds. We've seen the cost of infrastructure construction balloon. This is just one metric, the cost of a linear foot of water main is up 66% in just two years. We are seeing significant cost inflation over a similar time Horizon the Consumer Price Index shows about a 25% since 2017. So we're in uncharted territory here and we're doing our best to manage our budget within those constraints. You all received property tax assessment and reappraisal notices from the state of Montana this year suggesting an increase in value of about 37%. In a typical high growth year the legislature would often dial back the residential tax rate. They didn't do that this year and so we're continuing to see a tax shift from residential property taxpayer, from I’m sorry, commercial and industrial property taxpayers to residential property taxpayers. This is a multi-decade shift. Again back in 1980 excuse me we had about 40% of our
of our tax base in Missoula was from residences. In 2020 that was 60% and we fully expect that when we're done with the analysis of this budget that that'll be over 70%. These are factors out of our control that are the shifting of burdens from other tax classes that have historically paid picked up more of the burden to residential property taxes. I say this all just underscore that we need meaningful thoughtful tax reform at the state level and unless and until we have more diversified sources of revenue, cities and towns are going to be continually feeling the squeeze. On Wednesday when we dive into some of our budget comparisons we'll look at what some peer cities have going on and we'll demonstrate that this is an issue across the state, that property taxes are a pain point across the state and that we need to continue to be diligent. What I will say is that our staff can squeeze the last drop out of every, the last bit, they are very efficient and effective at delivering services and this budget is lean. It is very lean but it does reflect our values as a community with targeted investment in the things that we care about. The next slide shows how that relates to our Strategic Plan. So we're investing in programs and projects that move the needle on our goals and our Strategic Plan. Our Strategic Plan distills the community's values and the Council's values into categories, and we categorize our budget decisions based on these pillars. A few highlights in the Community Safety, Health and Well-being category we are reopening the Johnson Street Shelter which is a high priority for our community to provide a level of service for those living without shelter. We're partnering with Missoula County to cover those costs and we're working on contracts for improvements and for services that will come before the Council in the coming weeks. We are increasing security in our rights of way and in our Park system. That is to increase security within the neighborhoods, to provide a higher level of garbage hauling, and to provide hazard pay for employees that encounter hazardous conditions. We're continuing to fund our crisis intervention team and our mobile support team which provide an important response, first responder response, within our police and fire departments. Just some highlights from the Organizational Excellence and Resilience Pillar. This pillar is about how we run our organization in a way that is inclusive, transparent, and nimble and in a way that supports our employees and provides high quality services. We know well that our organization thrives when our employees are well compensated and when we retain our employees. We include what is really a modest cost of living increase for our staff in this budget and we were able to bring our Police Union up to closer to their market rate and get them closer to the pay that they deserve. Our police department was and is still is behind the market in other communities and we're pleased that the Missoula Police Officers Association ratified a 10% increase to their contract which is a highly needed increase to their to their rate of pay. We're continuing to create efficiencies within our internal structures with a new payroll system, with some work on providing data to the public and to Council and work on communicating and engaging with constituents. Our Economic Health Pillar just for a few examples, this is about fostering an environment that creates partnerships that result in an increased economic vitality within our community. We're anticipating depositing nearly 5 million dollars into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund this year. That's through non-tax sources so that is through land sales and that is through policy changes at the Missoula Redevelopment Agency. We are contributing the minimum amount required by our ordinance, or by our resolution rather, from the general fund but the balance of this is coming from the from non-tax sources and will make a difference in providing for the construction of housing that Missoulians can afford without having a tax impact. We're continuing to work on our goal of 100% clean electricity by 2030. We're contributing to the United Way Child Care Advantage Program and we're continuing to seek innovative partnerships like that as well as our partnership that we've been talking about through the U.S. Department of labor for workforce development. Our Community Design and Livability Pillar of the plan supports continued work on our code reform process, again with an end goal of working to provide housing that Missoulians can afford. That's fully funded in this budget to complete the code reform process and is using additional ARPA funding which is the American Rescue Plan Act, the pandemic relief funding. We are using fund balance within the Parks Department to update our couple decade old Parks Plan creating a new Parks, Recreation Open Space and Trails Plan. Again with a non-tax impact for this year. It's funded out of Fund Balance from The Parks Department and we're working on some climate work through our Urban Forestry Program as well as other programs. And we're building a lot of infrastructure. Our Infrastructure Program is designed of course to create a built environment that supports our community and provides for clean drinking water and safe streets and meaningful investments in our community. I’d also note that our infrastructure work is an important piece of creating good jobs that pay well in our community which is part of the Economic Health Measure as well. So we'll complete the Build Grant in the Mullen Road off of Mullen Road for about 3 million dollars this year of nearly all federal money. We will continue to invest tax increment financing and other federal funding sources in a variety of transportation improvements to the tune of about 6 million dollars invested in sidewalks and greenways, and about 9 million dollars of federal funding leveraging 2 million dollars of local funds for safety improvements on South Avenue. That's in partnership with Missoula County. Again the Missoula Redevelopment Agency will invest several million dollars in public infrastructure for sidewalks and water infrastructure and for trail projects within the community. Our water utility will invest over 10 million dollars in new infrastructure as we continue to keep the promises that we made when we acquired this system and bring water leakage down within the system. We're continuing to focus our efforts on sustainability from a grant writing standpoint with electrification and chasing after federal funds in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act and we'll talk more about that on Wednesday. So a lot of good things in this budget. It is a lean budget and it is an increase and that increase is a function of rising values and declining alternatives and that is something that is inevitable in I would wager nearly every Montana community and that is something that we're going to be fighting up against until the legislature takes some action. I just close by saying that on that note that the notices that went out to our community suggested a 37% increase in value and had a number on there that showed what taxes would be if mils were not reduced and I'm pleased to say that we are reducing the number of mils levied. There is still a tax increase. It is significantly better than the notices that went out from the state in in late June and that's because of the diligent work of our finance team to sharpen their pencils and keep this as lean as possible. Our last slide I believe shows within our within our strategic plan the three lenses that we use to guide the implementation of our Strategic Goals and these are really around who benefits and how we move forward on our community goals specifically as they relate to housing, equity, and climate. Again just to touch base on this coming week we'll look at city by city comparisons. We'll look in greater detail into the inflationary numbers on Wednesday. We'll dig into this tax shift to residential property taxpayers. We’ll go in detail into the tax increment financing and the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, and we'll look at the American Rescue Plan Act, a retrospective of how we spent those funds and what we've got left. With that, Mr. Bickell anything else from you? Okay. So our public hearing remains open and you're welcome to come up and provide comment on the budget and again this is not the last opportunity but you're welcome to come up and give us your name for the record and give us your comments please.
Emmet Kinnison Very interesting yes. My name is Emmett. I do live in Missoula I'm well known. The thing is, this is very interesting I'm glad you'll explain the reasons that you're doing this except there's just one thing. As far as the people who rent here and the people who have property here even in the South Hills I don't think we can afford this. We're taxed enough already. I mean property taxes have been raised last year and many other times and my rent was raised by $50 and that's cheap compared to a lot of other rentals. It'll probably be raised again next year and I'm on a fixed income of Social Security Disability. Like I said even people in the South Hills they'll be definitely affected. Almost 10%, it isn't exactly 10%, that is a big increase and you know people with the money to move may just decide to move out of Missoula, Montana to seek better grounds but people who do not have the money to move, like me, unless I get a miracle we'll have to pay the higher taxes and the rents. My rents will go up. I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean I'm barely in it with inflation and everything else. You know the poorest of the poor are going to get hit and the houselessness I'm afraid this will contribute to homelessness, houselessness whatever you want to call it and we have a problem with housing in Missoula. I think the minimum wage jobs which are a lot of our jobs, just they can't cover the new rents. It's important we have revenue and you
know that's interesting about the 80s because I was going to comment about this because rent and everything was lower in the 80s. But you know I think we can still pay for these good services that we need and still freeze or lower property taxes. We've got to find a way so that all of us can live here in Missoula, all of us can be happy. I'm an old-timer, an old gangster and I've never seen my rent this high. This is kind of scary and please please vote no on these new property taxes. I don't want to be forced to wonder am I going to have to move next year or find something else or do something else because you know the neighborhood I'm in it's very nice and I just pray that we can find a way to solve everything without raising these property taxes and everything so that everyone can rent and live here successfully in Missoula as I have for many years. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you sir.
Clayton Shaya My name is Clayton Shaya, s-h-a-y-a. I agree with our previous speaker 10% is a lot. And it's not just on the taxes. It's an increase of salaries in places where some of us don't see the benefit of the salary already. Mentioned the business area liaison or business area improvement and for the first time I really want more transparency. I'd like to know how much that person makes. Your liaison officer was kind enough to come to me with one of your police superiors and after having seven of my windows taken out of the Johnson last year and having my car sit on the street for over a month, getting absolutely zero help and very little compassion except for the old lady at abandoned cars, from the city about the situation. Pulling my car to the lot, fixing five of the windows, or fixing all seven windows. I had another five broken out and police wouldn't even chase the perpetrator. Just in this last month officer J. and the business area liaison officer were kind enough to come to me and also to fix every one of the windows in my car, and gas it up and do anything they could to make me comfortable to leave their town because I was agitating their homeless situation way too much by feeding a free food kitchen. By trying to make a positive example by showing up at every cleanup and helping to clean up. Straight, I don't think that deserves an extra 10% at all. I think the numbers on this budget should be clear as day and I'm not the most semantic computer person I've ever met in my life but when I try to dig them up on this stuff and I can't find them. I have been embarrassed before. Your Police Department and our inability to see what is even being voted much less get a chance to speak on it or vote is embarrassing.
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Moore.
Bob Moore Bob Moore again, m-o-o-r-e. I would like to express my thoughts about this budget more in the process than the dollars because I don't know exactly what the dollars, but I noticed that the Mayor's comments just a minute ago, he missed saying anything about the MRA. Money that the MRA spends? Why did you not do that Mayor? Someone said the MRA is spending about as much as a third of our budget. I don't know if it's true or not. Someone told me that. MRA one agency, but most of the money going to developers, banks and all that sort of stuff. I've heard people tell me that oh that's not nice but it's like saying it's not cash. Not money. It is money and one way or another it gets to the taxpayer. Why do you not see that? Why do you not see that it costs, what does it cost to run the MRA operation in salaries and expenses and so forth?
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Moore remember we don't do it back and forth here, but we'd be happy to if you get your questions out we can get them answered.
Bob Moore Okay I didn't expect an answer if that's what you're saying. It was a way of making a point. You talked about it in that article something about it. I would love to know the amount of money that has been developed through TIFF. But really nothing but welfare to reduce the costs that this developer has to spend to get a project done. Do you see that? Why would you give this big expression and mention several things and not mentioned what is the money taxpayers are paying with TIFF. I went to the state in Helena a while back. I sat there and saw an elderly lady. I don’t want her saying that she was elderly, she looks elderly, and she was crying about trying to pay her taxes. But we got millions of dollars to give Stockman Bank. Stockman Bank’s got a balance sheet of several billions of dollars, income of hundreds of millions. They need it? Answer that question do they need that money? You're violating all or most of your Provisions in the MRA Guidelines. Your guidelines say you have to be satisfied that the person begging for the money needs the money. I didn't say wants the money, they supposed to need the money. I asked at the MRA meeting more than once what you were doing about that. Are you doing it, they're not following their own and they should be punished and kicked off the board and all the people that's responsible for this, and I don't know who all those are, but the ones that are saying to check to see if the person who needs it and I don't have to go see Stockman Bank to know that they don't need 2-3 three million dollars, whatever their welfare checkbook.
Mayor Jordan Hess So you're a little over four minutes Mr. Moore.
Bob Moore Make sure you time everybody else okay?
Mayor Jordan Hess I was generous with you this time.
Bob Moore All right, thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thanks, Mr. Moore.
Nicole Gomez Good afternoon Mayor Hess, councilors. My name is Nicole Gomez, that’s g-o-m-e-z. I'm the Justice initiative Director for Montana Women Vote. As we did at the last public hearing we have another letter from a neighbor who's living unhoused, sharing their opinion on how the city should best invest funds to support folks experiencing houselessness. I think it's important to note that this person was afraid of coming themselves because of past experience with law enforcement and they feared coming into, walking in to speak to the body themselves unless they invite further attention. We continue to encourage you to seek out the voices and input of impacted individuals and to create accessible ways for folks both housed and unhoused to participate.
Mayor Jordan Hess I can take that from you. Thanks for bringing that. Anyone else tonight? Mr. Dunlop.
Robert Dunlop Robert Dunlop, 2316 West Venton. It would be very helpful if we could see some numbers, whether you could put them on the internet. Without seeing the numbers it’s hard to be critical of your work. It’s senseless to even do it. I'll pretty much iterate what I said to you last year. A lot of the people that are paying the taxes are going to go to their savings account and they put those savings there by earning money, a lot and earned money at a rate a lot less than what you're paying your people. Without seeing the numbers I don't see how you can infringe on public safety either run the police or run the fire department. It's not that they're golden and not to be touched but the public will never accept a reduction in their safety. There is an area that I think you should look at and that's Parks and Recreation. We have beautiful parks here. I hope you can maintain those parks but I do not believe on the recreation side that the city of Missoula should be sponsoring these four and five-day camping trips that are out of the county. I don't believe we should be in the daycare business. I don't believe we should be in the float business. There are people in town that have businesses that take your daycare. There are businesses in town that run float trips and if we have good parks people can supply their own recreation. I do hope that you'll make these figures available to the public. I'm also glad that members of the audience that rent realize that taxes are big cause of rent increases. We are all in this together. When you say you're partnering with the county, don't forget the city residents are contributing to the county. We're getting double-taxed. If you're a city resident you're really paying two times for some of these services. So thank you for your time. I hope you can somehow get that budget back down. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Dunlop. At the end of the hearing tonight we’ll go over where the documents are located on the website as well. Anyone else in the room tonight? Ms. Pulley.
Barbara Pulley Information that isn't being summarized in an easy form, someone is asked what is the total of our unhoused people and how much do we pay? Another issue that I had was, is the Parks Department working out at Marshall Mountain which is a county property and not in the city of Missoula. The Parks Department should not be involved unless the county is reimbursing the city Parks Department. And another one that I've been missing the budget meetings I wish I could have gone is are we going to have a levy for the new fire station out there up by Mullen Road? Because I missed it and then is that something that's coming down the pipe or not. But from the previous meetings at the local government academy, I thought that was really something that was definitely needed and so I wasn't sure if that was an issue that you guys had already done.
Mayor Jordan Hess It is and we can get you some information on that. Thanks. Anyone else tonight with any comments? Okay I do have a few online and we'll come back to the room after the online comments. I have Jennie Vader. And you should be able to unmute now. Ms. Rehbein, could you preemptively put up the phone numbers just in case anyone needs them, and then we’ll go to Ms. Vader.
Marty Rehbein I think I just unneeded my mic.
Mayor Jordan Hess Yes we can hear you now.
Jennie Vader Okay sorry I wasn't available earlier. My name is Jenny Vader, j-e-n-n-i-e v-a-d-e-r. I live in the Franklin to the Fort neighborhood just a couple of blocks from the Johnson Street Shelter and I'm sure there's a lot to comment on in this budget but I hear a lot of community members bringing to the Council and to other forum the issue of houselessness and affordable housing in Missoula. So I'm pleased to hear and support funding for the shelter, Johnson Street Shelter, this fiscal year but I would urge City Council to look into future years and sustainable solutions like contributing more to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, fully funding the mobile support team for 24/7 service and designating a low barrier outdoor space with services. I think that funding these services could potentially actually come from the over $600,000 in security forces currently being paid for to police houseless folks including also the sweeps that are happening in camps. Also from funding from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency and ARPA funds. Hopefully, I can join Wednesday's meetings to learn more about all those that you mentioned. I just think these sound like sound solutions which are right at our fingertips and can immediately relieve suffering while working towards affordable sustained housing for more of our community members. So I urge my council members and City Council to look more towards these more compassionate solutions that can keep and make Missoula a better place for everyone to live. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Vader. Next I have Cheryl Drake. Ms. Drake if you're unable to unmute I would just call attention to the phone numbers on the screen that you can dial in as well. We can hear you now.
Cheryl Drake My name is Cheryl Drake d-r-a-k-e and um I'm just at my wit's end. I think along with everybody in town, The first responders, they shouldn't even be having to ask for money. They're the heart of this town and the money is in the MRA and the TIFF Districts. That's the windfall. That's the only organization getting the windfall. And I don't know what it takes from the community to get you guys to listen. I mean it's turmoil out here. There's going to be a breaking point and so please start listening. I mean this insane. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Anyone else online tonight? I'm not seeing anyone else online, anyone else in the room? Okay, so I'm going to close the public hearing. That is not the end of the opportunity to comment but what that does allow us to do is to start deliberating on the budget and so just again Mr. Bickell can you show for folks watching where to access the budget documents.
Dale Bickell Yes give me one moment to show the county website. Gotta lean into my mic here. Before you on the screen is the City website that includes all of our budget information. This can be received through our main website. It's linked in the Finance Department in the FY 24 Budget and here you will find information, really good summary information related to the tax-funded operations, the general fund Road and Park District, in the document entitled The Year Budget Analysis. There is line item detail
expenditure budgets in the FY 24 lineup details. There is the FY mil levy computation is there that shows the change in the mil levies from the prior fiscal year and then below all of those things the various presentations that have happened, and below that those are all of the new requests that were requested and some of which were funded and most of which were not funded throughout the budget. This is continually updated by the Finance Department and it is up to date reflecting information for this meeting.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Bickell. Any questions on that? Okay. That remains linked on the home page as well under the Government tab, there's an item under there as Budget that goes to the same page. Okay, so we've had a public hearing. As I mentioned we'll continue to have public input and we can now have any questions from Council. Any questions or questions and discussion tonight? Mr. Nugent.
Alderperson Nugent This question is for Mr. Bickell. I think as people are looking through kind of the overall budget they'll see some of these larger funds and one of them that jumps out is impact fees and we have a large balance in impact fees and we're scheduled to bring in more than we're going to spend. Obviously, there are a lot of ways that we can and can't spend that so can you maybe explain why we're only going to spend $500,000 and what sort of things are really allowable or not allowable on that fund.
Dale Bickell Yeah great question Mr. Nugent. So the impact fees are restricted to spend on infrastructure, infrastructure that has at least a 10-year useful life. And those funds are only that pro-rated share that's attributable to growth. So it's only for those public infrastructure facilities that are available for new growth. The reason that the current budget only shows $500,000 in there is that all of those expenditures have to be approved by the Impact Fee Advisory Committee. Now in the Community Investment Plan that is also linked on the website and has all of the construction projects there are a number of projects that you'll see that are listed as approved and for funding it says to be determined and many of those to be determined are items that have to be approved by the Impact Fee Advisory Committee for funding before those actually go to Council for the approval of the construction contracts.
Mayor Jordan Hess Follow up?
Alderperson Nugent Thanks I was hoping you would get to the committee because I think a lot of people just assume that you can put it in a budget and spend it. What sort of things are we allowed to spend impact fees on? I know there's some infrastructure within departments like fire and then roads and things like that so could you maybe shine a little more light on that.
Dale Bickell Yeah, new infrastructure, so the attributable growth could be 100% impact fee funded, and for an example, a new fire station, a new Fire Station 6 could be funded 100% with impact fees should there be enough impact fees to fund that. And then oftentimes we also do projects that actually have a growth component to them. So an intersection project where we are rebuilding an intersection but we're building additional capacity into that. Our engineers will actually calculate the added capacity and that pro-rated a share of that of that Improvement in an intersection could be eligible for impact fee. Those some examples. Same thing with parks. You can look at a park and look at capacity in a park and maybe even not by extending the acreage necessarily but if you are adding amenities such that it actually builds capacity for the park, that capacity piece would be impact fee eligible.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thanks. Ms. Vasecka.
Alderperson Vasecka Thank you, I don't have a question I have some comments. First of all I wanted to thank everyone who did come down tonight. This is a very important discussion that affects everyone's year and so I wanted to thank folks who came down and commented on their feelings about what's going on. I have to say I'm disappointed that there's so few of you that came down. There's a lot of complaining going on the radio, emails, phone calls and come down here and let us know in person. Please do that because this is like I said, it's very important and we need to hear how this affects every individuals’ lives. Like this one gentleman said renters don't really understand. I'm a renter and I understand that property taxes are a huge reason on why my rent increases and I think that maybe landlords should send property tax bill with once a year just let them know hey look at this increase. So I just wanted to let folks know that it is not too late to comment. If you didn't want to come down tonight you can still come down on Wednesday or come virtually or next Monday on the 21st is the final vote and please let us know your thoughts. Because it's no secret that I disagree with a lot of the spending that my colleagues and the city spends their money on. So I would really appreciate some backup, and that's all for now.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Vasecka. Mr. Jones.
Alderperson Jones Thanks I just want to make a few comments. First of all yes thank you to everyone who came down. I really appreciate people taking the time to come down here and talk to us. This will be my eighth budget and for the great majority they get harder and harder every year because of the structural sideboards around our revenue and also around our expenditures, and providing the level of service that Missoulians want, which is having enough police to make sure people are feeling safe in this community and having enough fire personnel so they can arrive in time to actually make a difference and those right there are our two biggest budgets, hands down. So that's the majority of what we're talking about when we talk about the budget. We also get many many requests to do so much more, a lot of which we don't do but we do try and work on issues that are very important to this community. Housing is a big issue and we've worked very hard to try and build some capacity there. It's still a very small component frankly of our entire budget compared to many other big departments. So I appreciate all the background information from Dale and from Mayor Hess. I just also want to say that Wednesday we have a long Budget and Finance Committee and that is the opportunity for councilors to make motions to change the budget. The deadline on getting those motions submitted is noon tomorrow so please submit those and I'm trying to make sure we've got plenty of time scheduled to entertain that and have thoughtful discussion, and we can have staff queued up to answer questions. So just wanted to message that also. Thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Ms. Anderson.
Alderperson Anderson Thanks so much Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to point out one thing. I think a point of clarification that Mr. Bickell brought up in regards to impact fees and what they can and cannot fund. Just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any confusion around fire stations. Impact fees can actually build buildings. They cannot um provide personnel. And so that's why having the levy going out to the community asking them to continue to support Missoula firefighters and their increased capacity is not something impact fees can cover the costs of, or MRA can cover the cost of, it only can be funded through the general fund which as we have been talking about is continually limited. For an example I sat with Mr. Bickell and I did the calculations on my property that I own that has gone up. My valuation from last year to this year went up over $150,000 yet the amount of money that I will be paying into taxes into the general fund actually is going down. That's because we are lowering our mil rates. It is a very complicated math equation but that is just one example where I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. My overall taxes will go up because of the other things associated that I pay taxes for but the actual offering that my taxes go to cover the general fund which if you're looking at your taxes says like General Fund City it's the very first line item based on the mil calculation and the valuation of my property even going up, actually my contribution is going down. Just wanted to point that out and I think it's really important that we are really clear about what pots of money on what things because it is not similar to our households where whatever income we generate from whatever source can cover our bills. We have legal statutes about different funds and what they can and cannot fund. It’s one of the most surprising things I've learned on my time on Council. It’s like all of the constraints around the different funds and how we fund various programs in the city. So Mr. Bickell if you could be so kind as to confirm I have my understanding of impact fees can fund buildings but not personnel I would appreciate it and look forward to engaging in more conversation with my colleagues in the public and that there's plenty of opportunities this Wednesday, next Monday, you can always can send us an email at Council, at ci.missoula.mt.us or you can call and leave us all a voicemail. So look forward to hearing and engaging with our community members. Thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Ms. Sherrill.
Alderperson Sherrill Thanks. I don't know if anyone's going to have this at their fingertips tonight but maybe if we could have it available for next Monday just the calendar of what we have done, when we started looking at the budget, the different presentations that we've had. I think it's really important because we get to these last couple of nights and there have been so many questions asked and so much work done and so many presentations I think it's just kind of a good reminder of the process. But I also think it's nice for our constituents to be able to see the date that we had different things in one format because you can go back and watch those meetings. I think that's really important. So if we can, that's just my request I guess that we add that to the agenda for next Monday night. I also just wanted to I guess piggyback on what the Mayor had said about City Club today. There was a fabulous presentation about property taxes. It was just today so I haven't had a chance to ask them to get it up on YouTube or some way but I'm really hoping they do because I would like to share it. We had Dan Bucks who is a Former Director of the Department of Revenue and he was kind enough to come and take his time and speak as well as Greg Hurts and Josh Slotnick. But this is my fourth budget and every year I go in and say I've got this, I understand this, and sitting there listening to Dan Bucks today I was surprised because I learned another facet of property taxes. Not necessarily the budget but how property taxes work. I thought he would come in and just be you know the graph guy because he's a numbers guy and he was very digestible and I just really hope people will watch that and I will have more to say on the budget next week.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Sherrill. Ms. Vasecka.
Alderperson Vasecka Just real quick, I wanted to point out that on the minutes for the Budget and Finance Committee from last week at least and I'm pretty sure on the other meetings that if you have a specific amendment that you wanted to look at, the video recording time stamp is presented at that. So if you wanted to look at the resolution related to pooled special sidewalk stuff then you can go to the timestamp for 11:35, so that is noted on the minutes and so it makes it really easy if you don't want to watch the whole five hour long session.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thanks for highlighting that. Ms. Becerra.
Alderperson Becerra Yeah I have a question about Engage Missoula and whether people can submit comments about the budget on Engage Missoula. There’s significant information about the process but I'm just curious to know if they can submit comments there and if so how do those get sent to us?
Mayor Jordan Hess I believe yes, that’s our standard practice. I'm not certain how the Budget Page is set up. Those do get collated on a regular basis and we'll make sure they get included and I might need to follow up on specifics of that but that is our standard practice with Engage Missoula. I don't have any additional hands up. Anyone else tonight? All right so we will have this back at 1:30 on Wednesday we'll resume the Budget and Finance Committee and we'll have this back for Final Consideration next week the 21st and thanks to everyone who came down to provide comment, and we will follow up with some of those specific items that some of you all asked for as well. With that we have two additional public hearings. Do we need a recess or do we want to power through? Power through? Okay so we can move on.