Leigh Griffing, Finance Department, said, today I would just like to quickly walk through the budget resolutions that are required to be passed, to be able to pass our budget for FY20. First, we have an appropriations resolution. This is essentially what people think of when they think of the budget, passing the budget. This is the resolution that outlines the total casts and total sources and total uses of funds. We then need to pass a tax levy resolution which will actually allow us to levy those respective taxes. Additionally, we have some fee resolutions that have built into the budget. There are three resolutions increasing certain fees by 3.25%. This is what we did last year as well in order to just keep pace with some fees. There is an addition of a water service line loan administrative fee and there’s an additional resolution increasing cemetery fees by 4%. This was approved by the Cemetery budget a few months ago. There’s been one change since documents were brought to City Council on Friday and I just want to point this out to folks, this has zero implication on taxes and is simply a document management piece. Fire had requested moving certain revenues into its own dedicated fund. That is in the new requests that City Council went through and reviewed during Budget Committee of the Whole. It has now been added into the appropriate place additionally so that it’s captured in that appropriations resolution. And I’m here for additional questions and information. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you. What are we doing for numbers, Leigh?
Leigh Griffing, Finance Department, said, this is a very small font even for an accountant’s eyes. The appropriations resolution for the total budget expenditures is now $178,747,664. This accounts for every single fund in the City including component unit funds, such as Missoula Redevelopment Agency, the Parking Commission, Tourism Business Improvement District, Business Improvement District and now the Fire fund as well.
Mayor Engen said, thank you. So, a little color, ladies and gentlemen. You all have seen my budget letter, the second round of which you received in light of our certified taxable values from the State of Montana. The story of the fiscal year 2020 budget is that the considerable hard work that many people in this community have engaged in over the years with regard to planning and investment and making this place a great place to live, is showing dividends. Our tax base has increased and has increased dramatically this year. And because of that increase in tax base and because of the increase in newly taxable property that’s on the rolls, we have enough revenue to fund a variety of things that we have simply deferred over the years because we did not want to raise taxes excessively. This budget represents an investment in six new police officers for the City of Missoula to serve a growing population and increased calls for service. It also adds an administrative support person in that department who will help us follow up on misdemeanor crimes and other work. It supports the Internet Crimes Against Children Officer who spends her time engaged in tracking folks who are behaving nefariously online and affecting the lives of children. It funds operations in Streets to the tune of 5-1/2 new employees as well as some additional equipment so that we can respond better when it snows and when it ain’t snowing, we can fill some of those potholes that you all occasionally tell me about. I’ve never seen one but apparently, they’re there. And it does a variety of other things. It funds an attorney in Mr. Nugent’s office who will continue to assist with prosecution and allow that court to catch up a little bit. It funds a position in our Housing office that will allow us to execute that important plan to ensure that the folks we serve in generations to come have access to safe, affordable, decent housing. And the budget does much more. It engages a couple of organizations in the sustainability work that you all have told me and members of this body over and over that matters to you. It also funds a position to assist in our Sustainability Office to help manage those contracts, those arrangements and the many plans we have to reduce the effects of climate change in our community and we hope our effort translates into a larger global effort. This budget is good news. We will be doing all of that while lowering mills. This is confusing. It’s difficult to explain. The short version is that if everything were equal and your housing property…your property values weren’t increasing, we would actually be charging you less. We’re still charging you less but your property taxes may go up because your property values are going up, according to the State of Montana. In just about any community in the United States that would be good news. I tend to think of it as good news here as well. When property taxes go down, that’s generally not a good sign for a healthy community. We’re also taking excess revenue from our redevelopment districts. They have had tremendous success. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing and we will be applying some of that revenue to our cash balance, our rainy-day fund, among the measures of our fiscal health and we’ll also be returning some revenue to other taxing jurisdictions including Missoula County and school districts, therefore we hope adding more money to the system and giving those folks an opportunity to either do more or charge us all less for doing the work that they do. This is exciting. Tax revenues that are new generally don’t go away. That means that we’ll have resources moving forward, as well, to continue to take care of this city that we all believe should and can and will continue to be a great place to live. And with that, I will open the public hearing. If anybody would care to comment on the budget this evening. That’s a level of excitement we don’t often see.
Leanna Walgren said, [off microphone] neighborhood over the past two years. Sorry about that. And we just wanted to express our gratitude to City Council for including the completion of our playground in the budget and ask that you approve it. Over the last two years we have raised nearly $12,000 through…you’re excited. Do you want to say something? Okay. So, we’ve raised nearly $12,000 through private donations and grant money so we’ve also been a recipient of a donated playground piece from Spectrum Aquatics. A huge thank you to them. And we feel that we have done our part to lessen the burden on the Missoula taxpayer to complete our part and we’re hoping that you approve the budget to include the completion of our playground. And we also just want to say thank you so much to Mirtha Becerra and Jordan Hess, our representatives, for helping us and Missoula Parks and Recreation Department and the Neighborhood Council for helping us. Thank you guys so much. We’re so thankful. Do you want to say what you would like in our park?
Unknown said, I would like trains.
Leanna Walgren said, thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you.
Sienna Solberg said, I am a Ward 2 constituent as well. I’m here tonight to show my support of the 44 Ranch Park Playground that is in the preliminary budget. And our neighborhood, like Leanna had said, has worked hard the last couple of years gathering donations and writing grants to help fund this playground. We are thrilled that it is in the budget and the remaining pieces are in there and we just hope it’s approved and we just want to express our gratitude to all of you for all you do for Missoula and for our children. And, lastly…
Unknown said, I would like a finished playground so I can play with my brother and my neighbors and meet new friends at the park. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you all. Mr. Daily?
Mr. Daily said, [off microphone] the last five years I’ve served in {off microphone} Services and currently serve as chair. I’m here this evening with our Executive Director and CEO, Susan Cole for the purpose is to thank you for your commitment to Missoula Aging Services and the designation of the 1.8 mill in that regard. Also, we’d like to thank you for the current Councilmember who served on our Board of Directors. Gwen Jones has been a very passionate member of our ward. In the 50 years that I’ve practiced law, I had the good fortune to serve on a lot of wonderful nonprofit wards because of this, I’m up here. That saying, when I started working in {off microphone} Services. Quality and dedication of people who work there. It’s a very amazing to see what’s going on and see what people are doing. And also by the extensive services that they provide to this community. Last year our mission is to promote more citizens. Last year we did that to more than 15,000 people in our community. So, thank you for your financial support and also on behalf of the citizens and I thank each of you for the very important work we do for our community here at the City. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Mr. Daily. Anyone else on the budget this evening? Yes, sir.
Jacob Elder said, I hail from Ward 1, Heidi West, and I am a member of this community and I’m also a proud Democrat. In local government it’s often said that the most important work of the city is the budget. And so, this budget is actually a couple of things that I’m really excited about is public safety. You know, with the addition of six new officers in the Police Department it’s going to keep our streets safe and our community safe and we all can go to bed at night knowing our community is safe. And also the budget is going to also implement affordable housing policy. And I think that with the ever-increasing homelessness here in Missoula, with the new implemented policy should hopefully help decrease that number. Lastly, so essentially this budget provides a road map for effective, efficient and a responsive city operations. And I think these operations are actually reflect values and our party, the Democratic Party support consistently. So, with that being said, I support this budget. I hope we can get it passed and thanks for listening.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, sir.
John Jenkins, 1211 Cooper Street, said, with regard to the last gentleman, I also support the Police Department. I think that’s great. I think that should be in the budget as well as many other necessary city services. However, climate change activism is not the purview of city government and increasing fees will not help make housing more affordable. And with regard to what the first gentleman said earlier about the character and the growing and the greatness of Missoula, yes, however, those people who over the many, many years have made Missoula great by struggling and fighting to survive, if they can no longer live here, you may have a great place but you won’t have Missoula anymore.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, sir. Ms. Deuel?
Katie Deuel, Executive Director of Home Resource, said, I recognize that steering and shepherding this precious midsize city of ours that we call home is likely always full of difficult choices and it feels to me that we live in a time in which we are confronting many challenges that are uniquely urgent and complex. And I’m standing up tonight just to say that I appreciate how this Council has and is recognizing and grappling with these challenges by identifying and acting on key values expressed by Missoulians, by voting with the budget and in other ways to support those values and working diligently using those values to lead our community to a thriving, sustainable, climate-smart, zero waste and prosperous future. Thanks so much to all of you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Ms. Deuel. Ms. Cilimburg.
Amy Cilimburg said, I’m the Executive Director at Climate Smart Missoula and I’m also a resident and taxpayer in Ward 1. I’ve lived there for over 20 years. And I just want to thank the Mayor, the staff that put this budget together and City Council for this thoughtful, good news 20…19…20 budget that we’ve just all been hearing about and learning about. It clearly funds the absolute essentials and also supports improving our community. I really appreciate funding some sustainability, climate, energy, zero waste proposals that fit our values. It helps build a more resilient community able to address the current and new challenges that we face so I just believe that this budget matches our community values and I thank you very much for considering it.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Ms. Cilimburg. Ms. Matthew-Jenkins?
Kandi Matthew-Jenkins, 1211 Cooper Street, said, I’m just wondering if you all find out that climate change is a bunch hooey, are you going to deduct it from the budget because nobody has a rule on climate change because God’s in charge and you forget that. You can’t change anything about the rain on Saturday. Where did that come from? Maybe it’s cleansing our air because we’re not doing Kim Trails anymore, thanks to our President.
Mayor Engen said, anyone else on the budget this evening? Mr. Henderson.
Denver Henderson said, I live in Ward 5 at 2316 West Crescent Drive and I’m here just to say thank you, first and foremost. I know in politics we ask for a lot of things. We ask for your votes, we ask for money and we rarely stop and say thank you so I wanted to come here tonight and say thank you for the work that you’ve done on the budget. I’m sure it was a thankless task with lots of difficult conversations and long nights but what you’ve produced, funds critical services, and it allows us to address some really critical issues in our community, first and foremost, being the affordable housing crisis. I think this has been a problem for a long time and I really appreciate that you’ve not only put forward a plan but you actually have put forward funding to realize that plan, so I thank you very much for that. I’m proud to live in this community. We have a great community with great people but it’s great not on accident but because choices that leaders before you have made and I appreciate you continuing to lead in that way and move this critical program. So, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity and ask you to complete your work by passing this budget tonight.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, sir. Yes, ma’am?
Gwendolyn Koon said, I am a resident in Ward 4. Just coming up here to say I hope you pass this budget. I feel like it’s a responsible use of money and does support things that Missoulians care about. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Ms. Koon.
Karen Wickersham said, I’m here representing myself but I’m also chair of the Missoula County Democrats. I live at 5455 Prospect Avenue and I just want to say thank you for all the work you do and I support this budget. It reflects responsible investments and expenditures around the values I support. It makes strategic and sensible investments in public safety, fire department, street maintenance, clean energy and affordable housing. So, I just want to say thank you and I support it wholeheartedly. Thank you for your work.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Ms. Wickersham.
Dakota Hileman said, I am a candidate for Missoula City Council, Ward 3, and I’m also a constituent in Ward 3 so I currently support the sustainability budget. I think that it needs to be increased in the future. I think that climate change should be the number one priority in our budget. And, you know, it’s great, I think that it’s a start but I think that over the years we need to increasingly expand it so I’m definitely in support of sustainability. Each city needs to be in support of sustainability. Climate scientists say that we have about ten years in order to stop climate change before it is no longer stoppable so I applaud your efforts, all of you, for putting that in the budget. I hope that you approve that aspect of it and I think that we need to look for it increasingly in the future.
Mayor Engen said, thank you.
Winona Bateman said, I’m a resident in Ward 1. Thank you for making time for this. It’s probably a law but I appreciate it anyway. I have some prepared thoughts that I’ll share and I’ll keep it brief but hearing everyone’s comments makes me think about how, as a mom, when I look to the future right now, I have a lot to worry about in our culture, a lot to worry about. Hate is on the rise. We have mass shootings. We have a changing climate and a full-blown climate crisis on our hands. I worry every day. I’m up at 4:00 a.m. every day thinking about the problems of the country and I’m writing letters. I’m writing ideas. I’m brainstorming on what I can do to make things better. When the Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change came out with their report in October of 2018 that we had about 10 years, as this young person just shared. I have a five-year-old and I have the darkest of the soul I’ve ever had since I was about 13. I think I’ve shared this story before but I’m going to share it again because my thought at that moment was my daughter’s future is on fire. How am I going to put it out? And that’s beyond any individual person but when we come together in a community and as human beings, not Republicans, not Democrats, but we come together and we view our future and what we want for our future as human beings on a livable planet, we have a lot of power. And I’ll tell you we’re all in it together. No one is getting out of it. We all have to work as a team at this point. So, with regards to the budget, this budget represents my values and my vision and my hope for clean energy, zero waste and a livable future for my family and all of our families. The City is making concrete investment in staff and partners to help us meet our climate goals and we’re staffing the police, fire, public works and we’re lowering the mill rate. When I think of a thriving, livable future, this kind of vision and commitment that this budget represents from the Council is part of that picture. So, don’t get me wrong. You’re not perfect and I’ll definitely be back to lodge some complaints on another night. I promise. But tonight, I just want to recognize that your hard work and commitment to the values that make Missoula, with all of its fabulousness and all of its many flaws, a wonderful community. Thank you for your great work.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Ms. Bateman. And we will be here because it’s a law. Anyone else on the budget this evening? Hi, Doc.
Betsy Grimley said, hi. I’m a resident of Ward 1. I did emergency medicine for most of my career and I want to say that I think it’s great that you’re putting more money in the budget for paramedics. I was there at the dawn of paramedics so I know how it was before we had paramedics and it makes a big difference in whether people survive or not. I support this budget. I support this Council. And I’m delighted that I live in Missoula. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Dr. Grimley. Mr. Alt.
Alan Ault said, Ward 4. Also, a candidate for Ward 4 City Council. Good evening, City Councilmembers, Mayor, Mr. Nugent. What I want to say is this budget is extremely complex and I’m sure there’s something in there for everybody, everybody’s going to like and everybody’s going to hate, but the point that I want to make is I put the pencil to the paper for the city portion of my taxes and on my individual house, I will be paying 7% more this year than I did last year. My neighbors, I looked at them. On average they’re going to be paying 6% more. I haven’t had a chance to look and see what it does to my wife’s small business but I will like to let you all know that in the last two weeks I know personally of three small businesses that had to close up because of taxes. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Mr. Ault. Anyone else this evening?
Todd Mowbray said, I live in Ward 4 and I would like to echo the sentiments of the gentleman who spoke to the budget during the public comment period. I thought he succinctly summed up the big picture and indicating that Missoula is and has been a wonderful place to live. It’s a reasonably smoothly functioning city when you look at many others, such as Seattle or San Francisco or Portland. And I think he made the very good point that in order to keep it running smoothly you need to continually reinvest in it, which I think this budget does, particularly in the aspect of affordable housing. So, with that reinvestment, I urge that you pass the budget and we keep the city as vibrant and beautiful as it is now well into the future. Thank you.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Mr. Mowbray. Anyone else this evening? Mr. Pearson.
C.B. Pearson said, I own property in Ward 1. I first came to Missoula in 1982 and, boy, has it changed and it’s been great. The two major changes that have been great is the investment that we’ve made and you all. It used to be very few young people, very few women on City Council so I appreciate your leadership and speaking in favor of the budget. It’s always tough to pass something like this and to do all of that great work. But the leadership that this Council, the Mayor and the most recent Councils have provided for this community is phenomenal. We love it here.
Mayor Engen said, thank you, Mr. Pearson. Anyone else this evening? Alright, with that, I will close the public hearing. Are there questions from Council this evening? Ms. Jones?
Alderperson Jones said, I had a question for you, Mayor Engen. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to the fact that last year the City of Missoula did an extensive survey of the community trying to see what their wishes and desires were, get a reflection of those values and I was wondering if you could speak to how the results of that survey to the degree that they are folded into this budget and I recognize…I mean there’s some things like capacity in the City’s Attorney’s office that people in the public won’t necessarily know about. But could you just speak to that a little bit in terms of how we’re strategically addressing that with this budget?
Mayor Engen said, sure. So, municipal budget should be a reflection of community values and we think that this budget does reflect those values. As expressed by a statistically valid survey that we did, now as time flies it was in 2017, an open-ended question: What are the three most important things to you as a resident of Missoula? And the answers that rose to the top three in this order housing, streets and property taxes. So, this budget takes care of housing or at least attempts to take care of housing, makes an incremental step in the right direction based on the policy that this Council adopted after considerable public participation input and consideration, we’re investing in implementing that policy. Streets. I think streets is code for a number of things. In some cases, potholes. In some cases, traffic. In some cases, sidewalk infrastructure. Bike connections, connectivity throughout the community. And this budget addresses that really in two ways. On the traffic side, traffic safety and enforcement as much nobody likes to get a speeding ticket, it is one of the tools that we use to remind people that we all owe it to one another to be considerate. We’ve got six new patrol officers who will be on the lookout for all of us. And we’re also making significant investment in the Streets Department, both in terms of staff and equipment. What we hear over and over again is that we’d like smoother streets. We’d like better snow response and this budget is intending to take care of that. And we’re always, always considering the property tax responsibility that our budgets place on residents of this community. The beauty of municipal government is that we all bear the consequences of the decisions that we make around this table so as property taxes rise for the people we serve, they rise for us as well. And in cases where they go down, they go down as well in the services that we all receive as a function of that shared investment that is taxation, we all reap the benefits or suffer the consequences when we don’t make those investments. So, really this budget, I think, reflects those values and more. And if we get further into funding, all of the things that support all of the things that are important, from the two kiddos who were here with their moms who believe that playgrounds are important, and if they have those playgrounds, they’re going to make friends and they’re going to socialize and they’re going to grow up to be healthy, happy human beings who further contribute to our community. That’s reflected…those values are reflected in this budget. The notion that we’re supporting a paramedic program, there’s nothing like calling 9-1-1 and not having the right person show up. So, when the right person shows up, lives are affected, changed in many cases, saved. Those are community values that are reflected in this budget. We’re adding staff to our IT Department. It turns out this whole thing runs on computers. Your ability to communicate with us, our ability to communicate with you. Our ability to manage the many resources that we deploy on a daily basis to take care of the citizens we sort of serve are largely dependent on that technical infrastructure so we’re investing in that. We are investing millions and millions of dollars in our capital expenditures program. That is the infrastructure that makes cities work from the time you get out of bed in the morning and brush your teeth, when you turn on that water, that water comes from a municipal utility. We’re spending about $6 million bucks this year in improving that utility while lowering those rates. Clean water that’s reliable and safe is a community value and this budget invests in that community value. When you pull up to a traffic signal, your hope is that it works, one way or another. And we’re investing in a technician in our Streets Department, our Traffic Services Division, to make sure that those lights work and might even get timed a little bit better with some help so your stops and starts are less fits and starts. Those are values that are reflected in this budget. We’re investing in our wastewater system. We’re investing in our composting facility. We’re investing throughout the city on all of these things that add up. We are greater, as they say, than the sum of our parts, and these many parts create a community that is livable and decent and kind and safe and one that we want to perpetuate and preserve for future generations. All of those values are reflected, I think, in this budget. It ain’t perfect by a long shot. My best days I would just as soon lower your taxes and increase your services. Oh, we’re doing that as it turns out which is unusual as well. Those are community values. Those, I think, are reflected here. Thank you for the question. I didn’t know I had that long an answer. Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, thanks. A question for Leigh Griffing. And, Leigh, you know me for a question, and I think our most recent Budget Committee of the Whole where the city stood relative to our debt limit and so, it poses the question and if you could just confirm that I am reading it right, so, in 2018, so it’s not the most recent numbers but it’s the most recent numbers. I believe, we have the caffer for the consolidated annual financial report, the City’s debt limit is, and this is a question, about $204 million, we have that and that is our debt limit by law. Leigh is nodding in the affirmative. We, as a city, have almost $6-1/2 million in general obligation debt against that $200-plus million debt limit, which she is nodding, so we are at 3.16…3.2% of our debt limit, is that correct, Leigh?
Leigh Griffing, Finance Department, said, that is correct for our general obligation debt limit and that is actually decreasing. It will be decreasing in 2019 and 2020 as well as we continue to pay down that debt.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, thanks. I just wanted to highlight that because there is sometime the mistaken notion that the City is awash in debt and over-leveraged and nothing could be further from the truth.
Mayor Engen said, Mr. DiBari.
Alderperson DiBari said, I’m not sure if it’s already online but in one of our BCOW meetings, Dale Bickell made a presentation that illustrated where Missoula is relative to our peer communities in this state and I’m wondering if those slides could be posted so that folks at home and in the audience could take a look at that information so that they know how we stack up in terms of our services and mill rates, etc.?
Mayor Engen said, we will do that. Further questions? Alright, seeing none, Mr. von Lossberg?
Alderperson von Lossberg said, this is a long one. Right, Marty? We’re going to do all these.
Mayor Engen said, you know, let’s take them one at a time for purposes of…
Alderperson von Lossberg said, okay.
Mayor Engen said, Marty’s record-keeping.
City Clerk Rehbein said, yes, that’s right.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, so, I recommend we adopt a resolution generally Adopt a resolution generally amending current Missoula City Cemetery fees as proposed by Missoula City Cemetery and Missoula City Cemetery Board of Trustees effective January 1st, 2020.
Mayor Engen said, that motion is in order. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we’ve had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
12 Ayes.
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, thank you. I recommend we adopt a resolution of the Missoula City Council increasing fees by 3.25% for the following services effective January 1, 2020: First, is review and processing of land use applications pursuant to city adopted regulations pertaining to zoning, subdivision and floodplain services. The second is business licensing. The next is police special event fees. The next is hazardous vegetation removal. The next is engineering fees and permits related to work and use of City public right-of-way, effective immediately. And the last is add water service line loan administrative fees in Exhibit D.
Mayor Engen said, that motion is in order. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we’ve had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
11 Ayes, 1 Nay
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. Mr. von Lossberg?
Alderperson von Lossberg said, recommend we adopt a resolution of the Missoula City Council increasing fire inspection, plan checking, pyrotechnic display and special event fees increasing fees by 3.25% effective January 1st, 2020 as shown in Exhibit E and F.
Mayor Engen said, that motion is in order. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we’ve had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
11 Ayes, 1 Nay
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. Mr. von Lossberg?
Alderperson von Lossberg said, three more. I recommend we adopt a resolution of the Missoula City Council increasing the wastewater industrial interceptor variance permit fee set forth in 13.07.410 Missoula Municipal Code and the waste hauler permit fee set forth in 13.17.210 MMC by 3.25% beginning January 1st, 2020.
Mayor Engen said, that motion is in order. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we’ve had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
11 Ayes, 1 Nay
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, I recommend we adopt a resolution fixing the annual appropriations and the Capital Improvement Program for the City of Missoula as set forth in the Fiscal Year 2020 Budget and Capital Improvement Program including: The Tourism Business Improvement District work plan and budget for Fiscal Year 2020, the Business Improvement District work plan and budget for Fiscal Year 2020, the Park District Number 1 work plan and budget for Fiscal Year 2020 and the Road District Number 1 work plan and budget for Fiscal Year 2020. And may I speak to that one?
Mayor Engen said, Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, thanks. I just wanted to point out, since this particular one, it’s the second to the last motion, for the budget covers the CIP. The CIP can be a bit of a mystery for folks and I just wanted to point out, as we talked about in our last Budget Committee of the Whole, that a lot of really good work for the community gets done in CIP and was just confirming with Ms. Griffing as we reviewed it last week how there’s about $27 million worth of work out in the community that’ll be done as a result of the CIP. And for that work we have a debt obligation, since we financed this work, I believe it’s about $680,000, Ms. Griffing? She’s nodding. I’m close. And we’re retiring a similar amount from prior debt obligations that we’ve used to finance work. And so when we look at some of the investments and things like 44 Ranch, I know Heidi and I have a particular interest in making sure that we’re on top of safety concerns with the Northside Pedestrian Bridge, you know, the assessment and ultimately replacement of fixtures like that as well as things like spray decks in the community are often done through the CIP. So, again, about $27 million of work with a debt obligation of about $7,600 and $80,000 which is similar to the amount we’re retiring and that’s, I think, worth the community knowing that and I’m very supportive.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
11 Ayes, 1 Nay
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, and to close this out, I recommend we adopt a resolution levying taxes for municipal and administrative purposes for the Fiscal Year 2020.
Mayor Engen said, that motion is in order. Is there discussion on the motion? Mr. Ramos?
Alderperson Ramos said, oh, boy. I said that I was going to try and keep this brief and then throughout this I have five pages of notes so bear with me. Bryan, I’m going to try and stay on script but no promises. Sometimes I go off on a little tangy here but first I want to thank Ginny for this wonderful diagram here. This is something that I am terrible at. I’m all about spreadsheets and graphs and calculators and bar charts but this is phenomenal right here so I might have to hire her for some moonlighting on a couple of my various projects that I have here. Very good work, Ginny. I really appreciate that and I think it makes it much more palpable for citizens to understand as opposed to a 300-plus page, 100 million-plus page budget. So, I do appreciate that. So, before I start, I just wanted to say that there are a lot of great things in this budget. The police officers, as everybody suggests, we were in dire, dire need of more police officers. I actually think that a little bit more would have helped but this is phenomenal right now, the six police officers. Super happy about that. And I think it’s important for everybody in the audience to know that every single issue addressed by the City Council and addressed by the City budget is also important to me. I don’t want us to live in some sort of barren wasteland that you see on the spot where the light doesn’t touch in the Lying Game. That is not what I want for us right now, but I just think that we’re getting to a point where we can’t afford some of this stuff, unfortunately. By what I mean is our lower income folks living here in Missoula can’t afford it. And I’m not proposing any amendments this budget cycle just because last time, I’m not going to lie, it was hugely disappointing to me. I put a ton of work into that and a lot of folks spent a lot of time coming here and then speaking until 3 o’clock in the morning. Everybody knows that was not a fun experience necessarily. And I wasn’t doing it to seek publicity. I was doing it because I was young and naïve and stupid when I first got in the Council. I thought that if I rallied enough people that were concerned about the tax increases and got them to share their stories, many of them crying, that I could make a change and, unfortunately, I was mistaken on that. And one Councilmember said to me that night that, Jesse, why are you proposing the same amendments that you did last Wednesday? Nothing has changed. And, you know, I think that was right. I think her comments were very applicable and I think that the same and I guess the same goes for this year, nothing’s changed. We’ve got very similar thoughts, very similar ideologies and there’s no sense wasting my time or your time or the audience’s time or the City’s time proposing any of these amendments because I know they’re going to be shot down. There’s a couple of things I wanted to address briefly. First, again, I want to reiterate that the Department of Revenue has absolutely nothing, and I mean that, absolutely nothing to do with how much you pay in property taxes. I had a great conversation with the Department of Revenue, which I never thought I’d say, but I certainly did have a great conversation with those folks. And we had a good conversation as well about how I understood that it wasn’t good being blamed for all these different property tax hikes that people are seeing across localities and municipalities across the state. And they really appreciated that. They said, yeah, I appreciate you recognizing the fact that we just do the valuations, we don’t levy any mills. And, God, I could use one of these right now, Ginny, because I’m about to jump into a spreadsheet. So, I’ve devised a spreadsheet because I’m very cool like that and this is what I enjoy doing. So, I don’t know if everybody knows this but how our property taxes are calculated, Mayor Engen was right, this is very, very complicated, and it can certainly be boring. But at the risk of that, I want to just state that it’s calculating…you take your taxable value so the value of your home that was determined by the Department of Revenue, multiply that number by 1.35%. So, .0135, that gives you your taxable value. You divide that value by a thousand and that is the value of one mill. And we do not charge you to live in Missoula based on the dollar amount. We charge you by the mill. And that is very important to know because oftentimes we will say, oh, we’re not charging you as many mills but the value of a mill has gone up and so at the risk of messing this up, I’m going to go and do a bitcoin analogy which I know of and the Council’s excited to hear because they heard it again on Wednesday, so they had a little sneak peek. So, the bitcoin analogy that I like to use is let’s just say last year, in 2018, you went to a car dealership and you purchased a car for $10,000 when the value of bitcoin was $1,000 a bitcoin. And the car dealer charged you $1,000 or charged you 10 bitcoins for that car. It makes sense, I mean, 10 bitcoins, ten times 1,000, that’s $10,000 bucks. But let’s just say in the year 2019 the value of the bitcoin went up to $2,000. I’m not saying your valuation doubled, just for simplicity purposes and to illustrate the concept, you go to that same car dealership and buy the same car and the dealer still charges you 10 bitcoins for it. You are not paying $10,000 for that car anymore, you are paying $20,000 but the dealer will tell you, hey, I haven’t raised my prices at all. That’s a very similar concept and just wanted to kind of use that, again could use one of these charts but at the risk of that, I will move on to do another portion of it. People don’t care about how many mills you levy. People do not care what the valuation is. They do not care if we’re saying we’re lowering taxes or raising taxes. It might sound nice for us but the politicians say we’re lowering taxes when we can put the onus on the Department of Revenue, but at the end of the day the lower income folks, the people on fixed incomes and not everybody is on fixed incomes, obviously, nobody is created equally and a lot of people have more money in retirement on a fixed income with a pension and something else, but a lot of people just have to live on Social Security. And for those people, the ones that I’m fighting for that money is real. They don’t care if you lowered the mills. They don’t care if their valuation went up. They care that they’re having to shell out more money for their portion for the City taxes and that’s something I think we are overlooking strongly in this budget. So, back to my spreadsheets, I spoke to the DOR and they said the average property value in Missoula went up by 9.9%. And that’s a residential property and that is excluding any new construction and the annexation. That is 9.9%. So, just using that number, 9.9% increase, even with our mill levy reduction of 3.26% we are looking at a total increase of city taxes of 6.33%. So, over 6%. So, that is number one what we have to focus on that with this budget we are raising taxes more this year than last year for the vast majority of people. Those are the facts. I’ve heard that many times that I have to have something supportive by facts, well, I have something supported by a spreadsheet and facts now. Obviously, some people are going to be paying more money, some people are going to be paying less money but on average 6.33% is the increase. And the money to fund all of these great things from the CIP didn’t just fall out of the sky. I mean, it didn’t. This is all taking into account, taking out new construction, which most of the new construction is captured by the TIF district, which none of that money was used to fund the CIPs, it was used to fund our rainy day fund but at the end of the day it is increasing people’s property taxes and that is what we’re doing. So, I believe it is very disingenuous and I’ve gotten into many arguments with my fellow Councilmembers about this when I was running for City Council, one of 2017, we lowered the property taxes but everybody’s property taxes came out and it turns out they were paying about 5% more. The same thing here. And I just want us to be honest and I think that there have been attempts to do so on this Council, especially with President von Lossberg, I really appreciated that on Wednesday’s meeting you speaking to that. Dang it. I said I was going to be short but there’s a lot more on this list. So, bear with me. So, I jumped ahead. I went off script. So, if values really are staying the same, and if we really wanted property taxes to stay the same, I should say, we would have had to lower mills levied by about 9% because that value with the mill went up more. It’s about 8.6% when you factor the differential of the increased property values and the mill levied but we would have had to lower property taxes about 8.6% just to make it so that we paid the same this year that we did last year. If we actually wanted to lower property taxes, we would have had to hit 9%, 10%, 11% then that would have been a true reduction on property taxes and that would have been great. I would have been totally satisfied with that. But another thing I wanted to talk about was the TIF districts. So, the TIF districts I know that it’s been touted that they’ve had valuation increases of 50% of them, which is great. I mean, obviously, that would illustrate that the TIF districts are doing what they’re supposed to do. However, TIF districts are largely comprised of commercial properties and commercial properties rose at a far more substantial rate than the residential properties did. You talk to many business owners, they saw valuations of their business increase 60, 70, 80, 100, 110, 120, 180. There’s are lots that have gone on right now with the Department of Revenue where evaluation of a business went up by 440% and that was not in the TIF district. And I don’t want to be mistaken when I was happy that the TIF money was being remitted back into the City that I am in any way supportive of TIF. Actually, it is the complete opposite. The fact that it’s proven that when we release money from the TIF districts back to these taxing jurisdictions, the police, the sheriff, the roads, the infrastructure, the schools, it lowers property taxes for everybody. Imagine if we didn’t just remit the 2.6 million and 2.8 million and we ended up remitting every single penny of that down to the debt service or whatever is legally allowed. I’m assuming it’s the debt service. That would have been great. And TIF is not bad if used properly but the fact that these TIF districts, as early as 2015, were extended 25 years until the year 2040 for this massive Urban Renewal District that encompasses one square mile, and we’re taking money out of it, illustrates the fact that we never needed to increase that district anyways. And I get it, from the City’s perspective, that we get 100 cents on the dollar versus 33 cents on the dollar or 30 cents on the dollar because when we keep the money in TIF, the City gets all of it. We don’t have to share it with the schools and the County. So, that’s something that I wanted to touch on, the fact that these districts are paying dividends, as we would call it, means that they don’t need to exist, that all this money could be released back into the community helping our schools, helping our police and helping the taxpayers reduce their burden. So, I just really wanted to touch base on that. I guess I’ll touch briefly…nay, I won’t. Never mind. But tourism. So, on tourism I did want to touch base on this and I did see that there was an email sent out by our Council talking about the tourism jobs and how much they paid and the City of Missoula helps out the tourism industry. We then we have the Tourism Business Improvement District. We have TIF money which helps out tourism-type developments such as hotels. And I wanted to touch briefly on those jobs. I mean, for the most part, I mean, you could maybe parse it out a little bit that the managers of these facilities and people can work their way up but for the most part those folks make $8 to $12 bucks an hour, those jobs that we’re giving massive subsidies to and helping out with tremendous amounts of money from TIF…Tourism Business Improvement District and the more people that we encourage here, through tourism, through taxpayer subsidies, the more people that are going to move here and drive up the cost of real estate. And I’m not saying I’m anti-outsider or anything like that. I’m just saying those are the facts. When we rely so heavily on the tourism district because we don’t have any bread-winning jobs anymore through manufacturing and various other things like that that you can actually raise and support a family off of, and instead we’re encouraging these low-wage service jobs where again $8 to $12 an hour, you can’t raise a family in Missoula on $8 to $12 an hour. You can’t raise a family in Missoula on $15 an hour because we are so expensive. And, yes, it’s great. We have a lot of amenities. We have a lot of materialistic things. We have a lot of parks. We have a lot of open space. We have a lot of trails. But at the end of the day, it’s the people that make Missoula great. It’s not the amount of stuff that we buy. It’s not like that all these different things make Missoula phenomenal; it’s the people. And I think it’s illustrated every single year when I participate in the marathon, which is just one year, but the people that came out for that were just incredible. They came out with signs. They came out with water bottles that they paid for with their own money. They came out, they were cheering for complete strangers. They had sprinklers pointed into the streets. It happens every time there’s a cause and people in Missoula rally for that cause. It has nothing to do with the materialistic things in this budget. It has to do with the people. And I think that, unfortunately, when we trade the materialistic things for higher taxes, we’re pushing out those great people in the community that make up our community and make it the community that we love. And I know nobody on this Council wants to hear it because I know we don’t want this to happen but people are getting driven out of Missoula and this budget is not going to help them, for the most part, unless you’re in the DOR who is getting back to me but it was less than 10% of property owners in Missoula experienced a valuation that stayed the same or went down. They’re getting them the final numbers on that. But for the vast majority of people this is a tax hike and people are really, really not being able to afford to live here anymore. I mean, you’re talking about folks on a fixed income that are just on Social Security. You’re talking about people that make $40,000 a year or $44,000 a year, which is the stagnant wage that Missoula has had for years and years and years. It’s far lower than our competitors. And it’s making it so that when wealthy folks from out of state, and I’m not bashing them, but when they can sell their home in San Francisco or in Portland or somewhere at a $300,000 gain, they can come here to Missoula and buy somebody’s house that can’t afford the property taxes anymore, the valuations. So, that’s something that I’m very deeply concerned with. I’m not fighting for anything else. I’m fighting for the lower income folks and I’m very concerned that this budget ignores them just for kind of a political tagline that we’re lowering taxes. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re lowering the mills levied. That does not matter to anybody who’s paying more in property taxes that’s living on a thin budget. It doesn’t at all. And we talk about housing affordability. One of the largest things that we’ve done on City Council is driven up the cost of housing by creating an artificial government-created scarcity of land. When we do more open space bonds not only does it increase the property taxes but when you take land off the market for development, it increases the land value and the land price. When you put more regulations and more stipulations and you raise the fees on all this, the developer doesn’t pay any of that. The developer doesn’t pay any of those increases and the developer, at the end of the day, passes that onto the customers. So, when we raise fees by 3.25% how can we even, with a straight face, say that we care about affordable housing? I know that we need more people and arguments can be made that we need more people to make the budget or to make the process go faster so more homes can be created but we’re raising the cost. And if we really want to address that issue of things being stuck in the bureaucracy too long, if we can reduce the amount of bureaucracy, not increase more people and pay more money for it. So, with that, I think I’ve rattled on for long enough. One final thing, I just wanted to say hi Mom. I know you’re watching tonight. And that will be all.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion? Ms. Jones?
Alderperson Jones said, I’ll be brief. I just wanted to bring a little focus back. I think this is a very, very good budget year. And having been on Council, this is my fourth year, I’ve seen the needs in many areas and so to have the revenue this year, to be able to address some of those needs is great. This is a really, really good thing. I remember four years ago, on my very first budget hearing that summer, Jordan Hess saying, as we had a very difficult year and we were having to raise taxes just too barely squeak in areas where we had to do things, Jordan saying, we do not have a diverse revenue base and that is the problem. Too much comes from property taxes. We have a three-legged stool with only 1-1/2 legs on it basically. It’s a painful place to be. And I was speaking with a constituent over the weekend and he invited me into his incredible house that I think he pays a lot of money in property taxes and we talked about taxes. And he was very straightforward. We talked about the fact that we do not have a diverse revenue base for our city. And he said, oh, for so many years now John has been trying to run this city with his hands tied behind his back and yet provide essential services that people expect. And there you have it, in a sentence, that’s the place we’re in. So, this year we’re getting more revenue. The Department of Revenue simply enforces the laws that our Legislature creates. And I think we’ve had a Legislature that has not been forward-thinking. It’s not been proactive to address the fact that we have a changing economy and we need to address that. So, that’s the big picture the way I see it. In the meantime, we work with the tools that we have. So, this is what we have this year and by lowering mills that is a really good thing. But by addressing some of the gaping holes in the areas that we need to, this is a really, really god budget, so I’m grateful that we have it proposed and are able to address the issues we need to. And you can’t talk about hiring six police officers and not having extra revenue to do it. We can’t provide extra service and lower taxes. It just doesn’t work. So, I’m very much in favor of this. And we’ve said it many times on Council, the Mayor said it many times, it would be great to be discussing a local option sales tax and how that could be providing property tax relief to people. Until our Legislature starts listening to us, we aren’t going to get it so I recommend you contact your Legislators and start talking to them. And if you know anybody in other towns in Montana, talk to them too. Thanks.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion? We’ll start with Ms. Merritt.
Alderperson Merritt said, I will be very brief. Last winter, as we struggled to deal with how to take care of our folks that are on the streets during the very cold weather, when we opened up the bus shelter and, you know, did kind of cobbled together some attempts at solutions, I visited during that time and was very struck by just the wide array of folks that are homeless in our community. So, I am very, very thankful that included in this budget is $50,000 to help with the emergency winter shelter and this is just one step to make this work for the coming year with the idea that we are going to continue to work on a much bigger and broader solution that hopefully we won’t have to have an emergency winter shelter in the future, but I am glad that this is on the books so this winter will, hopefully, be a little easier. Thanks.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. Harp?
Alderperson Harp said, following up on my colleague Merritt, as you might recall, we had a great deal of folks that came down here and sat in these very seats that all of you do tonight, really concerned about their fellow citizen, those who are without as many means as perhaps some of us in this room. And, as Julie mentioned, we cobbled together an emergency act. And in following that we heard that a lot of folks that had volunteered came back and said, you know what, we really need to hire people who know what they’re doing. Guess what? People with expertise are worth something. And as you might have noticed in our budget, everything goes up by 3-1/4%, all our fees, and that’s a reflection of inflation and it’s also a reflection of the fact that we had collected bargaining agreements in place for all of our staff. People are worth it. We, as government, are in the progress of…I’m sorry, government is in the business of progress for the people, not for a few but for the people, and that includes all of us. And what does that progress look like? Well, I think any one of us who has gone to a national park or was a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout believes by the adage that we should always leave a place in better condition than we found it and that requires fiscal responsibility. It means that we have to invest in those very same people I mentioned before. It means we have to invest into the programs that we provide each and every one of us and at sometimes you need parks and at some points in your life you may not be interested so much in parks. I’ve never had occasion to call 9-1-1 but, by golly, I am so glad that I have that ability to do so and rest assured that Chief Brandt, here in the back, is going to show up when necessary. We also have to invest in placemaking. And that CIP budget that we had talked about does that consistently and has done so for decades. Long before any one of us were here our forefathers were putting things in place so that we could have this incredible place that we call Missoula, that we had decided to call home and stay here because of its beauty and its various different amenities that we all value. It would be fiscally irresponsible if we were to all our assets to degrade and fall into disrepair, whether it’s the Currents, it’s Splash Montana, it’s this building, it’s our fire engines, etc., we have a lot of assets that we’ve got to take care of and as a financial advisor for 22 years, it’s probably the number one thing you do, you make sure you take care of your assets. If we don’t, it has an adverse effect on our property values. And anytime I’m sure you open up the paper and you see properties selling for prices well in excess of what you paid for it, you kind of scratch your head and you wonder why. Well, I can…I would bet that every real estate agent when they are doing their job and doing it well, they promote the neighborhood in which that house is found, not just the four walls and what’s inside of it, but that neighborhood. And that neighborhood includes access to a fire department, police on call, a school that’s in a nearby facility, streets that you drive to work, school, church and a grocery store and home again and a host of other things. And if we don’t continue to invest and maintain those things, they will degrade and we will have a community that we may not be so proud of. I think my colleague Ramos has made himself a case for government influencing living wages and I hope that he would co-champion with me with that idea of trying to raise wages in Montana, not trying to drag down values but to raise people up from where they are. We are a place of incremental perfection and democracy has been doing that for the last 2,000-plus years. It’s just not simple. Our budget, if it could be priced perfection, no one would live here so we kind of eat away at it a little bit at a time at a small increase that is reflective of inflation and of the people that we value. So, tonight I will be fully supporting our budget this year and I look forward to my other colleagues’ comments tonight. Thank you all for coming tonight.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. Anderson?
Councilperson Anderson said, I hate having to follow you guys. First of all, I want to thank everyone who came and took some of their time. I know it’s a beautiful summer evening and you all could be some place else so thank you for giving a little bit of your time and your comments. So many of the comments that you all reflected really touched my heart because they are how I feel about Missoula. I feel incredibly lucky to live here and incredibly honored to be able to represent all of you on Council here. One of you said that the budget is complicated and boy, golly, that’s true. And facts apparently are somewhat, in dispute. And I think it’s important to realize that we are only one of the actors that goes into your overall property tax bill. If you dive into it, you can see that there is a line for the city and then there’s the county and schools and various districts and fees and things like that. And then there is the Department of Revenue. They’re the fourth actor in our little play per se and they are the ones who decide what the taxable value of your home is. And, as Gwen said, it is based on the laws that the Legislature pass and a complicated algorism and equation that they go and then they give us that number. We have no control over that number. And we wait for it, the first week of August, and Dale, you know, it’s like a kid on Christmas and sometimes it’s goal and sometimes it’s a new Gameboy, you know. But this year we were lucky that we had growth and the investment in Missoula that we’ve been continuing to make year after year, bit by bit, is paying off and our values and our assets increased. So many of us our home is the biggest single asset that we own in our portfolio and many people saw a 9.9% increase in that asset. That is a good thing. And that number that the Department of Revenue gives us is what we plug into our equation that then figures out the mills and how much we tax. But when you, as a property owner pay your tax, you also pay taxes to the County and you pay taxes to the school district and so they are the other parts of the equation that go into the overall tax bill that you, as homeowners, pay. And I think it’s important to realize I feel proud of this budget because we our portion of your property tax bill we said we are going to fund the necessary priorities it takes to run this community. We’re going to put investment in fire and police and roads and housing and we’re going to do that responsibly and we’re going to lower taxes. And we hope that the numbers, that are other actors, the schools and that the county get, that they look at their budgets and are able to fund the necessary priorities that they’re responsible for and also lower taxes as well. But that is how we look at our budget and we are just one part of this complicated play and one more actor and I think it’s important to highlight that. And, as Gwen said, it is an imperfect system. Absolutely. Our Legislature continues to cut essential services. It gives tax breaks to corporations and continues to push down that burden onto municipalities and we only one way to raise revenue to support all the things that we share. And I encourage many of you. I ran…when I ran for City Council, talking about the need to have outside the box thinking, not on our behalf but on our partners in the Legislature because they’re the ones who can control whether or not we can ask you, as citizens, if you think a 1% tax on a beer at a restaurant and a 2% tax on a hotel stay here in Missoula can go to our coffers instead of the state coffers. We have to ask you to give us permission to do that but first the Legislature has to give us the permission to even simply start having that conversation with you. So, the budget is complicated. I am proud of what we have accomplished. I am proud of the things that we are funding and we did it in a responsible manner.
Mayor Engen said, Mr. Hess.
Alderperson Hess said, thanks. We’ve had years of a steady hand in management of the City and that has led directly to the situation that we’re in now. It’s led directly to increasing values. It has led directly to the beneficial situation that we find ourselves in right now so thank you, Mayor, and everyone for that. Last year’s budget meeting I acknowledged that there are a variety of different ideologies in our community that are all valid when crafting a budget. I think that’s no less true today. I think this budget represents the prevailing values and ideologies of the community and I think that it captures a number of things that are extremely important to a number of members of this community. I’ll support it enthusiastically.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. West.
Alderperson West said, so, when we, we’re a family of four, living on a single income and renting a house on the north side of Missoula, there were many things I worried about. I worried about winter coats and boots and making sure that my kids were having a nurturing environment. But one thing I didn’t really ever worry about was property taxes and in part it wasn’t an immediate bill I had to pay. And once I became a homeowner, we still qualified for a low-income property tax assistance. And now that my current home value has gone from $168,000 to $309,000 my property taxes are going from $2,339 a year to about $4,000. And I gladly pay that amount because I know that that amount of money goes to schools. It goes to the County and a portion of it goes back and invests into this community that we call home. It pays for parks. It pays for trails. It creates walkable neighborhoods. It fixes our infrastructure. It supports progress in developing an affordable housing policy. It funds our community partners and reaching our climate goals and our zero waste goals. And it funds all those things that made Missoula a really livable place when I was a low-income, you know, a member of the low-income family. And I definitely don’t agree with my colleague Jesse Ramos property taxes being the single thing that drives people out of our community. I think it’s much more complicated than that. We inherit a…not even inherit. There are many problems across all of our communities that stem from a lack of social services and a lack of access to health care and as a city we are on the front line of dealing with people and dealing with our citizens and making sure that everyone is taken care of. So, I support this budget. I hope we have a few more years like this where we can really invest in deferred maintenance and expand investments in our infrastructure.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. Becerra.
Alderperson Becerra said, thank you. I have called Missoula home for more than 17 years now and I left for about two years. When I came back there was palpable change, more people, more cars, more buildings, more restaurants, more traffic and it felt very different. This was only two years that I was gone. It felt different but yet it felt the same. I could still look at open spaces on the hillsides and kids playing in playgrounds, people using the river and Caras Park. It felt very Missoula. It felt like I never really left. And I appreciate that because that’s what makes Missoula, Missoula and that’s what makes all of us who have left want to come back. And I think that is no accident. That is because we have had leadership in place that has a vision, that has dedication, that has compassion, that has a sense of responsibility to the people who live here and want to call this place home. I think there is a little bit of misunderstanding or maybe confusion around the idea of using or continuing to block areas that are open space and how that relates to affordable housing. And just most recently we supported acquiring more land near Grant Creek that would connect the North Hills. That area to me is a clear example of how that is the best use for that piece of land. Anyone can access that piece of land. If they hadn’t been put to that use, it would probably have a few houses on it, on a portion of that land, because the other portion is not ready for development. Actually, perhaps just one home. So, it’s one home on this big piece of land that has the potential to help many, many people in our community. Connect neighborhoods, create and develop that sense of equality in our community. So, I really think that we need to start looking at open space playgrounds not as amenities but they are an important component of what makes Missoula special. It makes Missoula that place that we all want to come back to and that we all want to continue to live in. So, I fully support this budget because I do think that it represents who we are, who we want to be 20 years down the road and it respects a lot of what our constituents think is important to them.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion? Mr. von Lossberg.
Alderperson von Lossberg said, thanks. I want to first mention that if climate change turns out to be a big hoo-ha, I’ll be throwing the biggest party this town has ever seen and you’re all invited to it. I’ll be glad to be wrong on that front. I think we’re making really responsible investments at the local level on that front. Others have touched on it relative to our zero waste plans and our energy and climate plan. I’m particularly pleased that we’re making investments both internally with our capacity there and with our partners without whom we could not do the planning and achieve any of the goals that we’ve set out to achieve, including the ones we’ve already met. I want to just highlight a couple of things. Missoula Aging Services, you know, folks sometimes say we don’t listen to folks. When Susan came in with Missoula Aging Services and did her annual presentation, it was clear that we needed to change our allocation there and I’m glad we did that for the proposal that came forward and appreciate Gwen’s representation on that board. I really appreciate Ms. Merritt and Ms. Harp bringing up the money that we’ve earmarked around the winter warming shelter, hope the County makes that same investment. We’ve budgeted that portion, the same ask coordinated by Eran Pehan’s office is going to the County. And those funds, if they’re approved at both, we’re going to approve it tonight with ours, but if they’re approved both places, those are funds that we can leverage with businesses and individuals out in the community. And the longer range plan there is indeed, you know, that land and the development next to the Detention Center and also in the west side at the former trailer park site. I have spreadsheets also. My spreadsheets lead me to different conclusions about some things and I think it’s worth highlighting that Missoula is a great place to do business today. We’re seeing that with companies like Submittable and Class Pass and on X Maps. My good friend Payne Greene and his YouTube empire, he calls Missoula home. And even though we see that down into projects like we reviewed the materials and wages and why sidewalks are more expensive to do today, part of the reason sidewalks are more expensive to do today is that the prevailing wage rate has gone up for the folks that do that work. I’m absolutely thrilled to see that prevailing wage rate go up. I’m glad that, for that portion of the growth and things being more expensive on that front. I guess the last thing I just want to mention is I think the part around property values and taxes that gets left out, and I’ll just be very plain, I won’t be as sophisticated as like using the bitcoin analogy, I’m a homeowner. My wife and I are homeowners. We bought a home about seven years ago when our daughter was born and it’s always been kind of a good example because it’s sort of tracked the median home price in Missoula. It was a $250,000 home. Now it’s, you know, worth a little bit in excess of $300,000. We are indeed seeing, as a lot of people are seeing, an increase in the valuation of 17%. Lowering the mill rate will, you know, mitigate that somewhat but the other side that doesn’t get talked about and can’t be ignored is that we’ve seen a $41,000…just shy of a $42,000 equity increase in that house. It’s not the role of government to somehow act as a backstop or modify or against an investment like a home. I’ll be paying more taxes on my city portion even with this low rate reduction and I’m absolutely glad to do so given the equity increase that we have in that home. I’m fully supportive of this budget and I really want to thank folks who came down and spoke to their values and how this budget intersects with those values and I’m glad to be done chairing multi-hour BCOW meetings. Thanks.
Mayor Engen said, Mr. DiBari.
Alderperson DiBari said, I will be supporting this budget. I especially appreciate the commitment that we’ve been able to make to our sustainability efforts. I’ve said this in the past and I want to pick up on something that Ms. West and Mr. von Lossberg just alluded to. The question that we have to ask ourselves is do you get a good value for the money you spend on taxes? And for me that answer is yes. My increased home value allows me to make an incrementally larger contribution to the character of this community. And I think a lot of folks have spoken to that. Taxes are a shared community investment and I am thankful for the contribution that folks made through their taxes in the past to have the community that we live in today and I am sure that the folks who live here in the future are also going to appreciate the shared community investment that we all make right now so that they can have a good place to live as well. So, as I said, I’m going to support this and I thank everyone for their hard work on the budget this year.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. Armstrong.
Alderperson Armstrong said, so, thanks to my colleagues for all the work they’ve done on the budget. I think one of the things we fund are the great equalizers. It’s all of the things that we pay for that don’t seem to cost much money enable folks to have the same quality of life as the folks who do have a lot of money and that’s really important. I think this budget allows us to take care of our neighbors, putting in the money for the homeless shelter. If we had had this money last year, we might have been able to sponsor the Skyview Project. We might have been able to go to the state and say we have matching contributions for this. Maybe we’ll be able to do that this year. The one thing I want to bring up is just math. About 28 to 35% of the tax bill that you get we have to provide about 8,200% of the services you probably actually use. So, if you live in the city, the majority of your tax bill goes to the…I mean it goes to a number of things, you can look at it, but in general if you live in the city, probably 100% of the things that you use every day, we have to take about 30% of your bill and pay for that. So, it’s just a math equation and I think we’re very lucky this year that we have enough money to do those things. Thanks.
Mayor Engen said, Ms. Cares.
Alderperson Cares said, I wanted to say two things. First, I really appreciate the respectful conversation that all of my colleagues gave from a 16-minute diatribe, from Mr. Ramos, to everybody else. I think that maybe in response to Mr. Ramos, everyone else really brought their A game and I think all points are valid and help each other to bring things to the table and so I am very lucky to work with you all and I wanted to say, as Chair of Public Safety and Health, that our investments in our city’s emergency services and in Municipal Court and the City Attorney’s office are really important and past due and I’m really glad that we’re investing in them.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion? Mr. Ramos.
Alderperson Ramos said, I, too, want to thank my colleagues for the respectful dialogue. Just wanted to address a couple of things in some of these responses so I will keep it brief as to not add onto my 16-minutes too much. So, the spending problem, we have a spending problem not a revenue problem. I’ve said this many, many times and it’s been brought up and I think it’s a good point to bring up that, Jesse, you want more city services like police and infrastructure and fire, how are you going to pay for those without higher taxes? And I think that’s a fair criticism. I got that a lot from the campaign. You want better roads and lower taxes and how are you going to do that? And I get it. I really do but there’s many different ways that we could have funded these without raising property taxes. I, again, levied a bevy of cuts that didn’t touch Missoula Aging Services, didn’t touch police, didn’t touch fire, didn’t touch infrastructure. I actually called for increases in some of those. And it’s just through more efficient spending and narrowing our role and our focus on the role of government and on our role as City Councilmembers. The vast majority of Missoulians just want streets with no potholes in it. They just want police protection when they call. They don’t want just five police officers on the streets sometimes in a city of 100,000 people when there’s other folks that come in from different areas during the day and on the weekends. That’s all they want. And I mean some of them that there is a certain role for parks and for other things like that but I think that we have to balance it a little bit more and I’m not levying any disrespect, and you know, I get it, it feels good to do a lot of this stuff. And I did want to just address Mrs. Harp’s offer, her generous offer, to work with her on raising wages. I don’t know if that’s a government mandate of raising the wage which I would not support because, as my Council colleague Bryan von Lossberg said, that the cost of sidewalks have increased because the cost of those wages have. So, if we want to talk about making Missoula a more affordable place, raising the cost of goods is not the way to do that. It’s to encourage more competition with a lot of these rules. You look at various instances. The most egregious example that I can think of is the North Dakota oil booms. When that was going on, people were making $100,000 a year. They were making money hand over fist. McDonald’s was paying $21, $22 bucks an hour because they had to raise that for the competition. The free market solved that problem. We need to work on trying to bring more breadwinner jobs here. And Mr. von Lossberg’s right, we have done that in the tech industry in some scenarios. But I will disagree in the sense that Missoula’s known around the states or around the country or around the state as being a good place to do business. That’s just not true from my experience. I don’t know if there’s any data for either one of us to back that up but just for talking to many business owners, that is not the mindset of Missoula. There’s a lot in impact fees and regulations and various other things that we do make it difficult to start a small business here. Next, I want to talk about the City portion of the property tax and I apologize to my colleagues if I didn’t make this abundantly clear but that every time I was talking, I was talking about the City portion of the property tax. I even addressed this when I said that when we take a TIF remittance, some of that money goes to the other two major taxing jurisdictions. So, I thought I made that abundantly clear and what I don’t want folks to think is that even though the City lowered our property taxes, our property taxes still went up because the other taxing jurisdictions didn’t lower it. That’s not what happened. All the taxing jurisdictions are probably going to raise their taxes a little bit too, but we do contribute to the raise too. Again, wanted to talk about that. Home is the biggest asset anybody can own and I agree with Ms. Anderson 100% on that but 52%, anywhere from 48 to 52% of Missoula are renters right now. They rent a home and when these valuations keep skyrocketing because of artificial land scarcities and because of increased regulations on developers and when we have debt and borrowers are people that borrow money and have to pay interest on that money, being stuck in committee meetings for months and months and months, that’s all passed onto the customer and that drives up the cost of property. And for that 52% of people that doesn’t own property right now that 9% increase really hurt their chances. It just raised their prices by 9% to try and get that home and get that attainability and get that great American asset that is owning your own home, but we have to be cognizant of the people that don’t own a home right now. That’s almost half of our population and all these different fee increases and regulatory increases and tax increases, that’s all passed onto the homeowner. And I did want to talk about the property valuations because I agree with President von Lossberg, it is not the role of government to in any way inhibit the growth of valuations but it’s not the role of government to increase those valuations either. And when we do things that intentionally or non-intentionally raise those valuations more than the statewide averages, besides Bozeman, I’m not going to defend Bozeman, trust me on that, we talk about it being such a great thing and, sure, for some people when they sell their home, it’s a great thing. Don’t get me wrong in that but for people that have lived here 40, 50 years, they’ve raised their families here, they can’t afford their property taxes anymore, what do we want them to do? We want them to take a hillock out on their house, a home equity line of credit so that they can pay their property tax at an interest rate paying to the bank? Nobody wants that. And then…and the last thing, I’ll just wrap it up there. We’ve been here long enough.
Mayor Engen said, further discussion? Seeing none, we’ve had a public hearing, we’ll have a roll call vote.
11 Ayes, 1 Nay
Mayor Engen said, and the resolution is approved. We have no more public hearings this evening.