The city’s public safety advisory committee concluded its work on Aug. 21 and has submitted its recommendations to the City Commission.

Those recommendations will be reviewed during the commission’s Sept. 3 work session and many are similar to those of the crime task force that met in 2021 and made recommendations that formed the basis of the city’s 2023 public safety levy ask.

The voters rejected the roughly $13 million safety levy and $21 million safety infrastructure bond on the November 2023 ballot.

During their Aug. 21 meeting, Commissioner Joe McKenney said that they didn’t ask for applications while putting the committee together but were “looking for real diversity” and those who took an interest in public safety.

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“If we’re gonna make real progress, we need to hear from all the voices,” McKenney said.

The committee reviewed a draft document compiled by staff of the committee’s written and stated recommendations from the duration of their meetings.

Some members said they didn’t know where some of the items had come from or that they hadn’t discussed those details.

“This is just a compilation of what you have told us…and you can say that’s not what we meant,” City Manager Greg Doyon said.

In attempting to develop a broad priority from the committee, McKenney suggested “a responsive and effective public safety team with community support and education.”

Jeni Dodd, committee member, said that “broad statements like that don’t solve problems. Broad perspective is not a problem solving type of perspective.”

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The committee recommended that commissioner “endorse a budget allocation” to hire about 14 additional patrol officers; two dispatchers; 16 firefighters and one fire prevention officer; one jury clerk; one courtroom clerk; one prosecutor and one victim/witness coordinator.

That recommendation is fewer personnel than were included in the 2023 levy ask, instead totalling roughy $5 million, McKenney said.

Aaron Weissman, committee member and business owner, said that reducing the ask shows the city is attempting to be responsive to the public’s no vote.

The Great Falls Police Department currently has six vacant sworn positions, according to Chief Jeff Newton.

The committee continued their discussion on whether the city should conduct public surveys related to public safety.

There was some discussion as to using data to address public safety issues and encouraging departments to use it.

Weissman said, “I do think we have a crime issue and data can help solve it.”

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GFPD uses data and what’s known as heat maps to watch for hot spots of crime and adjusts accordingly.

Newton said that to make a statistical analysis and predictive model, they’d need an actual data analyst, which the department doesn’t currently have the resources to hire.

McKenney said that maybe it was time they encourage a crime intervention center.

Dodd said she was concerned about the idea of contracting with mental health and social work professionals and putting them at risk on police calls.

The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office applied for state grant funding to establish a crisis intervention facility and revive a mobile response team, to have mental health professionals respond to certain calls with law enforcement in an effort to keep those in mental health crisis out of jail and get needed services instead.

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The county was notified it had been awarded some funding but has not yet received details from the state on the level of funding.

Newton told the committee that they had a grant for a mobile response team that they coordinated with Alluvion, who backed out. GFPD officials approached Many Rivers, but that arrangement didn’t work due to lack of staffing and GFPD had to return about $70,000 of grant funding.

Newton said they never send mental health professionals into active disturbance or dangerous situations, but have them respond with officers and if they’re able to handle it, officers can clear the scene and respond to other calls.

Great Falls Fire Rescue Chief Jeremy Jones said they are working collaboratively with CCSO on the grant for a crisis intervention center and mobile response team.

“It is being worked on,” Jones told the committee.

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As they were going through the seven pages of draft recommendations, George Nikolakakos, state lawmaker and committee member, said that they needed to “hack and slash” the document to tighten it and that there were items in the weeds that they hadn’t discussed.

The group discussed separating public safety levy requests.

Wendy McKamey, a state representative and committee member, said that separating the levy requests will make it look like they’re coming back to the same well rather than supporting the whole project of trying to make things safe.

“I think that it kind of causes people to think that one agency might be more important than another agency. I don’t like that appearance,” she said.

McKenney said that they hear people say learn to live within their budget, so he worries if they split the levy asks that people won’t pay attention and say they just gave money, live within your means.

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Weissman said that the city asked for multi-agency levies in 2009 and 2023 and both failed.

He said he’s heard from people that they’d prefer to choose some priorities and that they should separate the asks.

In Helena, voters approved a bond to build a new fire station this summer and on the same ballot rejected a levy that would have hired the firefighters to staff the new station and additional police officers.

The committee also discussed sunsetting tax increment finance districts and evaluating tax abatements.

State law specifies time limits for those districts, as well and their creation and management.

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The city currently has five TIF districts.

Dodd said that they could have sunsets and that the park district has an end date. The park district is an assessment that is governed by a different section of state law.

There was some discussion on redirecting federal Community Development Block Grants to city needs, rather than other entities, to free up funds for public safety.

Over the last two years, $2.69 million, or 89.55 percent, of the city’s CDBG allocation have gone toward city projects, according to Tom Hazen, city grant manager.

The remaining $313,980 or 10.45 percent have gone toward external projects, which included furnaces at the Great Falls Housing Authority, childcare programs at the YWCA and Peace Place, as well as Boys and Girls Club summer childcare scholarships, Alliance for Youth’s youth resource center and a revolving housing loan.

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Committee members discussed taking seven mills given to the Great Falls Public Library under a 1993 management agreement and directing them to public safety. Those mills have gone to the library since 1993 and were separate from the charter amendment voters approved in June 2023 to increase library funding.

The library board has set a special meeting for Sept. 5 to discuss the management agreement, which the board has been negotiating with city officials since March.

During the meeting, Susie McIntyre, library director, said that the seven mills in the agreement were part of the overall funding package presented to commissioners when they voted to send the library levy to the ballot and what library officials presented to the community during the library campaign.

She asked the committee to respect the will of the voters.

The committee spent time discussing a recommendation for a local option sales tax for marijuana.

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Several members of the committee asked whether a local marijuana tax was an option or whether it existed.

That tax has been in place in Cascade County since voters approved the 3 percent local option tax on both recreational and medical marijuana in November 2022 and went into effect in February 2023.

That’s on top of the 20 percent state tax, that stays in the state coffers.

Of that three percent local tax, 50 percent of revenues go to Cascade County, five percent goes to the state and 45 percent is split between the City of Great Falls and towns Belt, Cascade and Neihart.

In the current budget, the city is receiving an estimated $220,000 of marijuana tax revenue.

Weissman said he was recommending that the city lobby the Legislature to give more of that marijuana tax revenue back to municipalities.

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The group had some discussion on state criminal justice and tax reform, but struck those items from their final list.

The draft list included a line to contract for private emergency services for non-emergency situations.

The city’s emergency medical services system only applies to calls that come in through the 911 dispatch system.

The city contracts Great Falls Emergency Services for ambulance transport and Great Falls Fire Rescue ceased several years ago responding to lower priority medical calls to free up resources.

The group also considered a recommendation to increase fees for nuisance calls and business licenses.

GFFR presented recommendations to commissioners in May to increase business license fees and make other fee changes.

Commissioners have taken no action on those recommendations.

The committee included a recommendation to encourage the commission to “identify a private advocacy group to conduct and pay for an in-depth poll” that would be citywide and probe residents’ opinions on public safety services, costs and potential tax support.

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The released a request for proposals in May for polling and outreach services.

Those proposals were due in June and the city received four proposals that City Manager Greg Doyon said have not been released to commissioners.

Doyon told The Electric that he will likely address the polling proposals with commissioners after they hear the committee’s recommendations for further direction.

The commission awarded a $150,000 contract to Wendt last year for an awareness campaign about public safety needs and the levy.

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The city employees at least two people that have communication duties.

Initially, the group had a list of conflicting recommendations on public polling.

Nikolakakos said it didn’t make sense to leave the conflicting ideas in the recommendations.

Sandra Guynn, committee chair, said that they could leave them in as options.

“Then we’re recommending nonsense,” Weissman said.

He said he was torn on a survey but the one thing the city asked the committee to do was talk about a survey and whether it’s a good idea.

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If all the options remain, “what we’re sending them is a couple lines that say ah we’re not going to make a recommendation on this because its too hard,” Weissman siad.

Nikolakakos said he was opposed to the city contracting for a survey but that they should vote and send a recommendation.

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Nikolakakos suggested that a volunteer group could organize a survey and door knocking campaign.

Shannon Wilson, city commissioner and committee member, said that the Great Falls Public Schools used a survey when their levy passed.

Voters passed a $98 million bond in 2016 and a $1.75 million operational levy in 2020 for GFPS.

City officials have been speaking about polling and marketing a levy since 2022.

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Former Deputy City Manager Chuck Anderson told commissioners in November 2022 that it’s not unusual for a government agency to hire a consultant to market a levy and that the school district had done so.

Great Falls Public Schools officials said that they had not hired outside firms to market the last operational levy or facility bond.

KEY!, a local education advocacy group, hired a third party firm in 2019 to conduct community polling and used that data to guide their inhouse community campaign for the 2020 operational levy, according to KEY!

Staff handled community education for the successful 2016 facility bond vote, according to staff.

The Great Falls Public Library Foundation has hired a third party firm to do community polling to guide the library’s plan to pursue an operational levy, but the library itself did not funding such work.

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Guynn said “something has to be done, we’ve got to hear from the folks.” She said a public education campaign on the consequences of insufficient funding was needed.

Dodd said the city can’t advocate for a levy and that people were upset with the city spending on their educational campaign for the levy last year.

Weissman said they could educate the public on the consequences without advocating for funding.

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The committee suggested independent citizen advocacy groups.

Foundations for both the police and fire department exist in Great Falls. A local political action group was established last year to advocate for the levy’s passage.