Updated 1 p.m. Sept. 22 with revised tax impact chart

The city hosted another town hall meeting about the proposed public safety levy and bond on Sept. 18.

The attendance was roughly the same as the meeting in June, with roughly 75 people in the room, at least two dozen of which were city staff, the city’s hired marketing firm and Mansfield Theater ushers.

City officials again reviewed the details of the proposed operational levy and infrastructure bond, city finances, public safety challenges and why they’re asking voters to approve the levy now.

Neighborhood councils holding public safety town halls

The Nov. 7 ballot includes a $21.17 million public safety infrastructure bond and a separate $10.7 million public safety operations levy.

In 1969, voters approved a $1.96 bond to build the existing fire stations and training center.

The tower at the training center is condemned and currently unusable.

City Commissioners vote to send public safety infrastructure bond to the November ballot

A 2009 public safety levy failed.

Public safety agencies in Great Falls are primarily funded through the city’s general fund, which is largely property tax revenue.

Property tax revenue only makes up about 20 percent of the total city revenues.

In the current fiscal year budget that commissioners adopted in July, public safety is $30.8 million. This year’s city property tax revenue for the general fund is projected at $24.2 million.

Since 1969, fire and emergency calls have increased by 700 percent, according to the city, but “due to staffing and a lack of resources, Great Falls’ first responders can only adequately respond to one major incident at a time – leading to longer emergency response times,” according to the city.

City Commission votes to send public safety levy to November ballot

Commissioners voted in March to send a public safety levy to the November ballot with the following language:

“Shall the City Commission of the City of Great Falls, Montana be authorized to levy mills for the purpose of paying costs of public safety services, including operations, maintenance and certain capital costs of the police department, fire department, city attorney and municipal court services and related public safety expenses? If this mill levy proposition is passed, the City will be authorized to levy permanently up to 103.75 mills per year, to raise approximately $10,717,305. Based on the current taxable value of the City, the property taxes on a home with an assessed market value for tax purposes of $100,000 would increase by $140.06 per year and property taxes on a home with an assessed market value for tax purposes of $200,000 would increase by $280.11 per year.”

City considering PR firm contract to educate public on safety levy

Levying a number of mills versus a set dollar amount gives the city more flexibility in the event that property values and the city’s tax base increase.

Based on the current proposed ballot language, the city can mill up to the max amount, but does not have to seek the full amount. The number of mills the city chooses to levy, up to the max, would be determined during the annual budget process.

City Commission approves $2.73 million contract for fire station upgrades

Commissioners voted in June to send a public safety infrastructure bond to the November ballot.

Commissioners and city staff have discussed public safety needs for years and every year during the budget process, fire, police, legal and the municipal court have presented their needs. Some of those have been funded over the years, but not typically to the level the departments requested.

City considering state lease to create all-hazard training center

Over the years, commissioners have also floated the idea of a public safety levy but didn’t pursue it until the last year after the city’s crime task force recommended in late 2021 a levy to fund more of the operational needs presented by staff.

The city’s public safety levy is completely different than the county’s public safety levy that voters approved in November 2022 as the city and county are separate government agencies with separate budgets and funding.

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The current proposal includes funding for two additional school resources officer positions, adding another $230,000 to the total levy proposal.

Great Falls Police Chief Jeff Newton said that his predecessors had asked for more personnel over the years as calls for service and community expectations increased.

Many of those requests were not funded by the commission over the last decade.

“We’re a reactive police department,” Newton said during the Sept. 18 town hall.

Newton said the recommendation for a public safety levy came from the city’s crime task force.

Commissioner Rick Tryon first pushed for the creation of that task force in January 2021 and the group began meeting in June 2021.

City approves contract for GFPD evidence addition

They submitted their recommendations to commissioners in November 2021 and commissioners and staff spent most of last year discussing the plan for a public safety levy.

In March 2023, commissioners voted to send the $10.71 million operational levy to the ballot, as well as approved a $150,000 contract with The Wendt Agency for a public information campaign related to the levy.

In June 2023, commissioners voted to send the $21.17 infrastructure to the bond, which is separate and in addition to the operational levy.

The bond includes:

Newton said that growth is coming to the city and that will require more public safety resources.

Great Falls Fire Rescue Chief Jeremy Jones said that their three main areas of need are personnel, stations and apparatus/equipment.

He said they have 13 firefighters on duty daily and the national standard is 17 for a single family house fire.

If there’s a structure fire, there are no other resources on duty to respond to other incidents, he said.

The current fire station locations were based on the geographic layout of the city at the time. Jones said as the city has grown geographically, about 41 percent of the city doesn’t meet the national four minute response time standard.

“Time matters, time is life,” Jones said.

GFFR to cease responding to minor medical calls; proposing fees for false alarms, noncompliance with safety inspections [2021]

Jones said the department is still using equipment and hoses from the 1970s, though they’ve been proactive in applying for federal grants to replace engines and used federal COVID relief funds to improve station infrastructure.

The city’s rating from the Insurance Service Office dropped in last year’s audit.

The ISO is an independent company that collects and evaluates information from communities on their structure fire suppression capabilities and most insurance companies use those ratings to set insurance premiums.

The rating is based on emergency communications, the fire department and water supply.

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Jones told commissioners during an August 2022 work session that the city’s rating had dropped, largely due to the fire department’s staffing resources.

Some of the major deficiencies under the ISO scoring system are the lack of an aerial truck that is staffed 24/7 and the number of firefighters at GFFR, Jones said last summer.

Jones said during the town hall that GFFR had received calls from homeowners that their insurance had doubled this year.

The ISO audit process is done every five years. Jones said if they don’t address the deficiencies, the city’s rating will continue to drop, causing insurance rates to rise.

City fire rating drops; officials discussing need for firefighters, stations [2022]

David Dennis, the city attorney, said the city has the highest number of criminal citations of any Montana municipality, followed by Billings, which has a larger legal staff.

He said they’ve been able to manage the caseload because of the experienced staff currently in the legal office.

But as the city transitions to the two court system with a second municipal judge, Dennis said the small legal staff won’t be able to handle the level of prosecution coming through their office.

Municipal Judge Steve Bolstad said the court’s levy ask includes a jury clerk, compliance officer and an additional office clerk.

He said they’re having trouble seating juries for trials, which leads to cases being tossed under the speedy trial requirements.

Bolstad said they were calling about 30 people per jury but around 2018-2019 the turnout started to drop to maybe five or six people.

The court started calling about 50 people to be able to seat a jury trial.

Bolstad said they have three jury trials per week in the city’s one court, which handles misdemeanors and traffic offenses. That means they call about 150  people a week as potential jurors. That number will likely increase as the second judge comes on board in January, he said.

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He said it’s a fight for court clerks to get people to come in for jury duty and having a person focused on that work would increase attendance and lessen the number of cases that are declared mistrials for speedy trial violations, which is 180 days for a misdemeanor.

Bolstad said the court has about 7,000 outstanding warrants and the compliance officer proposed in the levy would aid in compliance with those warrants, court orders and sentence requirements.

City Manager Greg Doyon said he understands the public’s wariness of the proposed levy and bond.

“The community is not unfamiliar with failure,” he said.

By that he meant that the Natatorium and Civic Center had structural failures due to lack of major repairs over the years. The Civic Center is undergoing a multi-million dollar repair project and the Nat is scheduled for demolition this fall.

Municipal Court discusses unpaid fines, second judge, additional court space

Recently, the city had allocated about $200,000 of COVID relief funds for infrastructure improvements at all four stations, but the infrastructure repairs turned out to be more extensive, exhausting all of the funds at one station and closing that station for months.

Doyon said the city has tried to redirect funds to public safety over the years, but it hasn’t been enough.

“As I look at operations, things are getting critical,” Doyon said during the town hall. “Voters will get to decide how they want to support public safety going forward.”

Doyon said if only the bond or the levy passes, the city will move forward with that funding. If both fail, he said he expects the voters will see another version of the proposal in the future.

The city has used part of its American Rescue Plan Act funds, which federal COVID relief, to address public safety.

The GFPD was allocated $4.5 million for the new evidence building.

GFFR has been allocated $4.84 million for the station overhead door replacement, equipment purchase, fire station infrastructure and fire engine refurbishment.

Newton said GFPD prioritizes calls and that officers often don’t have time for proactive work.

He said a routine DUI arrest is a three hour process.

City considering adding SROs to public safety levy

Newton said that GFPD has already eliminated the DARE program, law related education in schools, the motorcycle and K9 units, a rotational detective, special projects downtown officer, the BRIC officer and reduced personnel for the directed enforcement team.

He said those moves were an effort to put as many officers on patrol as possible.

Without levy funding, Newton said they’d have to make more tough decisions.

The K9 program was cut in 2016 due to some unfortunate incidents over the prior 18 months that injured the dogs and handlers, then Chief Dave Bowen said.

Bowen dissolved the Business Residential Involving Community, or BRIC, position in 2018 due to a staffing shortage when the department was down 11 sworn officers and four civilians.

As of early September, GFPD had two vacancies with four new hires, but they have to go through training before they can be on solo patrol.

City adjusting plans for proposed public safety levy

Newton told The Electric that with the new officers, vacancies and injuries, he was down 10 officers, meaning they weren’t in a patrol car assigned to a squad for solo patrol.

He said GFPD is running 135 to 150 calls for service in a 24 hour period and the volume isn’t decreasing.

Jones said that if the infrastructure bond passes, GFFR will build a fifth fire station and any money not spent on that project will go back into infrastructure improvements at the existing stations.

The operational levy, if passed, would allow GFFR to hire 32 new firefighters for about $3.2 million; a new deputy chief of fire prevention for $141,000, among other additional staff and equipment.

Jones said that they need 12 people per shift, and the proposed new personnel would be needed to staff a new station, a full time aerial company and full time medical squad unit.

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Without the levy, Jones said GFFR personnel would continue to do the work, but eventually something would have to give and he wants to address the shortages before there’s a catastrophic event or loss of life.

An audience member asked why the city annexed property when the city couldn’t support existing needs.

Doyon, the city manager, said it’s a balance of needing to grow the tax base and support economic growth while also ensuring core services can be provided.

Mayor Bob Kelly said that it’s a unique time in Great Falls with market forces brining more growth to the area.

He said the current strain on public safety would be exacerbated by growth without more resources.

Commissioner Joe McKenney said that he believes that some will vote against the levy thinking they’re saving money, but if the levy fails, property insurance will continue to increase as the city’s ISO rating drops due to lack of fire protection.

“We are going to pay for this. The price is going up one way or another,” McKenney said.

City reevaluating plans for public safety levy

Commissioner Rick Tryon said that there’d be a substantial influx of people with the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile system modernization to the Sentinel system.

The Sentinel Program Integration office at Malmstrom Air Force base said that there will be two locations for the project in Montana. One of those will be in Great Falls, the other in Lewistown.

Both will be about 50-60 acres of land that has not yet been purchased or leased, with about 2,500 to 3,000 personnel, with their own dining facility, gym, recreation center and be completely contained within a fenced area. Northrop Grumman, the contractor, will provide security, patrol the area and control access, according to Malmstrom.

Sentinel program staff has spoken with the fire and police chiefs in Great Falls and Lewistown, as well as area tribes, about the locations.

Construction on Sentinel project set to begin

According to the Sentinel office, field work on the weapon system replacement won’t start until 2030 at the earliest.

Doyon said that if approved, the public safety levy won’t likely free up other city funds for other needs.

In an effort to redirect resources to public safety, Doyon said in recent years, the city had reduced or capped contributions to the Great Falls Development Alliance; capped funds to the Great Falls Public Library, Great Falls Park and Recreation, and city planning; and cut funding for the community fireworks display, Christmas tree and Municipal Band.

Private groups took on funding the fireworks, Christmas tree and Municipal Band.

Doyon said that led to the need to the park maintenance assessment that was approved by voters in 2018 and the library levy that voters approved in June 2023.

City to consider contract for Natatorium demolition

Doyon said city staff has pursued grants; purchased rehabilitated equipment, changed staffing, cut GFFR response to minor emergencies, use mutual aid and volunteers where appropriate to reduce the strain on public safety agencies.

Doyon said that after the public safety levy failed in 2009, there’s been a struggle to meet response times and there was an effort to ramp up fire prevention to lessen the risk from major fire events.

An audience member asked why the levy couldn’t be separated into sections by department so voters could choose which portions to support.

City officials said public safety is a continuum and each department impacts the others so it wouldn’t make sense to break public safety into smaller sections.

Kelly, mayor, said that “this levy does not put us ahead,” and just allows the city to meet current needs.

City considering improvements to GFPD, GFFR; public safety levy [2022]

Lance Boyd, student services director for Great Falls Public Schools, asked how the levy would benefit the community’s children.

The proposed levy includes two additional school resource officers. There are currently four, all of whom are GFPD detectives, and through a contract with GFPS, the district pays 75 percent of the salary for those offices.

Det. Katie Cunningham, who supervises the SRO program, said that when the program started more than 20 years ago, they didn’t need officers in the elementary schools. She said now they have unruly students at all grade levels, weapons being brought to school, violence against students and staff, and more issues.

GFPS Superintendent Tom Moore said that there had not yet been discussions on whether the district would be required to fund a portion of the two additional SROs if the levy passes.

He said that he believes the district needs the additional SROs and if voters approve the levy, GFPS officials would likely negotiate that funding structure with the city through the annual contract process.