Updated Feb. 13 with retreat costs
City Commissioners briefly reviewed their goals for the year during their Feb. 4 work session.
After an all-day commission retreat on Jan. 3, City Manager Greg Doyon distilled their discussion into two pages of goals for the year and asked during their work session if the document captured it accurately.
Mayor Cory Reeves said that one of the things they discussed during the retreat was a review of public services and “certain programs, services that are just draining on the general fund.”
Reeves said parks or pools or whatever the case might be, they’ll potentially have to make hard decisions or accept that some services don’t generate enough revenue to cover their costs.
“When do we sit down and have that discussion,” Reeves asked, looking to Doyon, asked if that happened in a work session or special meetings.
Doyon said there’s several options, including staff reviewing budget numbers and making recommendations, all of which would be discussed in public meetings, similar to the traditional budget process.
During their Jan. 3 work session, commissioners said they wanted to create an advisory group to “examine revenues and expenses for city services requiring general fund subsidies,” host a town hall meeting, and conduct “mini city-101 programs” for the advisory committee to educate its members on city departments and services and “make a decision on funding for all city services requiring general fund subsidies prior” for the upcoming budget.
The purpose of the committee, according to their goals document, is “to gather input from the community and establish a city-wide philosophy regarding the level of general fund support for city services. This approach ensures the most effective use of public resources.”
Doyon said during the Feb. 4 meeting that it will be a challenge to establish the group quickly since they need to establish a selection process and would need to be orientated.
“Essentially it’s going to amount to a budget committee,” Doyon said.
Commissioner Susan Wolff said she’s participating in the consensus building process Great Falls Public Schools is using currently to prepare for anticipated budget shortfalls.
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She said the district has a rubric for parameters of their decision making and asked if the city needed something similar.
“How are we going to make these decisions,” Wolff asked.
Reeves said they wanted to focus on core city services and asked if they started with asking Doyon to look at that data.
“I don’t know,” Reeves said.
Commissioner Joe McKenney said that in thinking back to their mistake with the public safety levy, the public safety advisory committee was a good model.
He said he didn’t think they’d get the needed information in time for this year’s budget process.
Doyon typically transmits the proposed budget to commissioners in June and commissioners adopt the budget in July, finalizing the tax levies and assessments in August.
Commissioner Rick Tryon said that he’s not sure an advisory committee will be helpful and that they’ve talked about the funds that are subsidized by the general fund before.
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“We already know what they are,” he said.
Tryon said they might look at leasing out a facility, but it might not have that much impact in terms of revenue or cost reduction.
He said they could look at those options and how much they’d save by closing or leasing certain facilities.
Tryon said they’d discussed privatizing sanitation.
Doyon said the sanitation fund is one that performs so “it comes down to what do you want for your community, do they want choice?”
He said that with a performing fund like sanitation that also pays internal service changes which helps fund city human resources, finance and legal, privatizing that could have the opposite effect and diminish other city funding.
Tryon said they just need the data, but didn’t think they’d get it done before the budget process.
Reeves said, “I’m hoping it’s pretty easy” for staff to collect the data, present it to commissioners and they can make some decisions.
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Doyon said there were factors to consider related to the budget, including movement at the Legislature “that will have a dramatic impact on how we budget,” a large scale tax appeal from Calumet still pending and collective bargaining negotiations.
Those negotiations often result in wage increases and health insurance costs continue to rise, so the little bit of new tax revenue generated annually won’t cover those costs, he said.
The early budget indication is that the city will tap into the fund balance again this year to make the budget work, which Doyon said, “makes my gut clench a little bit” because the city’s been doing that for several years now.
Doyon said shutting down two neighborhood pools, which are subsidized by the general fund, wouldn’t generate much revenue, but “it’s gonna get you a lot of angry residents.”
Wolff said if they rush cuts, especially without major savings, that they’re going to anger taxpayers and the community.
“We have to take into account more than just the dollars,” she said.
McKenney said he’s been blessed to serve on city commissions “that don’t kick the can down the road,” so he suggested getting data, then making decisions from there.
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Commissioner Shannon Wilson said that advisory councils are good but not necessarily for the budget and that they should rely on their department heads.
“An advisory council, it may be feel good, but I don’t think it’s going to work in this case,” she said.
The commission’s Jan. 3 retreat was originally scheduled to take place in Fort Benton but moved to the Great Falls Fire Rescue training center due to inclement weather. In recent years, the retreat has been held at the Ranches at Belt Creek and was previously held in city facilities, such as the library’s basement meeting room or Great Falls College MSU.
The retreat is not live streamed or recorded, but is publicly noticed and minutes are taken.
According to the city, “the off-site gatherings are working sessions designed to help the commission focus on long-term strategy and big-picture planning—without the usual day-to-day distractions. The benefits of such retreats include:
- focused environment – being off-site allows for deeper, more strategic discussions without interruptions.
- team building – strengthening working relationships leads to better collaboration and communication.
- strategic planning – the time is used to set commission goals and priorities.
- neutral ground: a change of setting encourages fresh perspectives and creative problem-solving.
- transparency and compliance – all meetings are publicly noticed and follow open meeting laws.
The Electric requested the costs for the retreats in recent years, which the city clerk’s office provided.
In some years, venues charged a small fee, according to the city, and no commissioners requested mileage reimbursements.
Commissioner Susan Wolff told The Electric in an email that “to best have a broader perspective on the needs of the community, we need to have this opportunity to broaden our knowledge to better set our goals and do our work for the community as a whole. Meeting off-site gives us the opportunity to drill deeper into conversations without interruptions or distractions versus our work sessions and commission meetings. Personally, it helps my ‘squirrel’ brain stay on task and it provides the opportunity to ask ‘why’ and say, ‘tell me more’ so I broaden my perspectives.”
During the Jan. 3 meeting with a facilitator, commissioners discussed themes ranging from housing, community development, communication, public safety and legislation among others.
Commissioner Rick Tryon said that for the next four to six months they should be vocal and proactive through their lobbyist.
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Doyon said there would be more coordination through the lobbyist, making sure the city is consistent and going to Helena to testify as needed.
Doyon said they’re monitoring the Montana League of Cities and Towns versus the city’s specific take on legislation, but it’s easier to have a lobbyist in the Capitol building during the session to track bills that could impact the city.
Tryon suggested that perhaps they pick some top issues, which Reeves said they’d already done and the commission had a draft list of concern areas during an December work session.
McKenney said they’d used the League as a lobbyist, but had decided they wanted their own this session.
The city has an $18,000 professional services agreement with Chuck Denowh from The Montana Group.
There are several proposed bills that remove some local controls for tax increment financing and levies, among other items.
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“It’s kinda funny how legislators say local control during their campaigns then get down there and take away local control,” McKenney said.
In making their goals for the year, Wilmarth asked commissioners to make statements with “we will, we must.”
Wolff suggested examining revenues and expenses for underperforming funds.
City finance staff has reviewed those funds annually, if not quarterly, for years during their typical budget process.
Tryon suggested they look at those funds with general fund subsidies.
Doyon said they needed to define what they consider core services since it comes down to determining what your budget has the ability to support and identifying which departments you’ve got to have and those that are nice but not absolutely necessary.
He said that’s why he’s pushing the issue of why things aren’t performing and ask if they can be eliminated, but it’s not that easy since the community will likely be upset, so do they say, “you’re getting what we can afford?”
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Doyon told commissioners they’ll need to determine if the budget can support those services, beyond what may be considered core, but they’re going to be asked what that means.
Those funds receiving general fund subsidies that aren’t generating enough revenue to cover costs include, Park and Recreation funds, Civic Center events, and others.
Tryon said he wasn’t “trying to stigmatize those,” but that they’re taking money out of the general fund for what’s supposed to be enterprise funds.
Doyon said, “you’d like them to be enterprise funds, but they’re really not.”
As an example, for the Civic Center events fund, the city doesn’t have the capability to produce its own shows and requires general fund support.
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The Multi Sports facility is another that has struggled and Doyon said they’ve gone back and forth on that one with a private group managing it for awhile, but they couldn’t maintain it, so the city had to take over management.
Commissioner Shannon Wilson said they’d need input through town halls on those core services or potential cuts.
Commissioner Susan Wolff asked if they wanted a task force instead, to which Wilson said she thought they’d get more input at a town hall.
McKenney said he disagreed and that inviting people to participate in a task force would get the the type they know will be involved.
“I think a town hall is a crapshoot,” he said, with low attendance and should have people to think through it over multiple meetings, with information on their services, to make changes and recommendations.
“We need the information,” McKenney said.
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Tryon said they could form a committee and hold a town hall to gain public input on what to do with those city services.
Doyon said they have to consider, “are people really bothered that we’re not responding within four minutes, I don’t think they are…so who are we trying to convince that we’re trying to do things differently.”
Out of all of their public safety information sessions, Doyon said he couldn’t think of anyone expressing a lot of concern that the Great Falls Fire Rescue response time was longer than four minutes.
Wolff said its’ an important standard that the city wants to meet, but not important to the residents.
Doyon said they heard a lot during the levy process about why were they just looking to address public safety now and “do you not remember” that they attempted a levy in 2009 and “people forget that this has come up during our budget process on a regular basis. Who are we trying to convince here that something needs to change.”
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Tryon said that there’s a different public mindset now than five or 10 years ago and “people are more tapped in and aware than they were,” maybe because of social media, but people are now more interested in local government, but “not sure people care if it’s four minutes or 12 minutes unless it’s someone dying of a heart attack.”
McKenney said they’re learning from their mistakes on the public safety levy and “we need to hear from folks who aren’t experts in city services like we are.”
Wilmarth asked them how that was going to get them where they needed to go.
Tryon said it would help them make decisions, but maybe the decision is to not do anything.
Doyon said that whatever advisory group commissioners decided to use, he recommends a crash course in city basics since they heard a lot of misconceptions during the public safety advisory committee meetings.
To address Wilmarth’s question, Tryon asked why they were doing the advisory committee on city services and finances.
Wolff said to spend their money the best way they can, Tryon said to free up general fund resources for public safety, WIlson said to get community input.
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Tryon said “maybe it is just an exercise in are we doing stuff that we don’t need to be doing, but I don’t think that’s it,” and that those services are being subsidized by the general fund that could be better used for public safety.
Reeves said they identified public safety as a core service and should look to shift some funds to public safety.
“We’re going to have to make some hard decisions,” Reeves said and asked if it was possible to put out a request for proposals to manage neighborhood pools.
Wilmarth said that as he listened to commissioner, “I think about how people in our community would define core services, like to many a pool might be that. If you’re really going to ask community to talk about it, I think you will be surprised to hear what they consider core services.”
Tryon said that there will be requests they can’t fund in the budget process.
“That’s usually what happens,” Doyon said.
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Tryon said he would like to do a better job this year funding those requests and if they say public safety is a priority, they need to trust those departments in their requests and fund them.
He said they could make a goal to fully fund public safety this cycle, but “I know that’s probably not possible, it’s aspirational.”
Reeves said that going into this budget cycle, they could fund Municipal Court and the city attorney’s office, then could focus on police and fire.”
Doyon said the revenue from the 3.5 mills commissioners voted to stop providing to the Great Falls Public Library would take time to come available to the city through tax collections so they’d need to consider how to stagger that funding toward public safety.
Doyon said that with the Calumet tax appeal ongoing, he’d recommend being very careful with their fund balance amounts and let the budget play out before making decisions on how to use those 3.5 mills.
McKenney asked if they were directing Doyon to make four hires within Municipal Court and the city attorney’s office.
Reeves said it was pretty specific and they should let Doyon see what those departments request in this budget.
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Wolff said they made statements during negotiations with the library board that the mills reduced from the city’s contribution to the library would go toward public safety, to which Tryon asked “what difference does that make? I just don’t think we need to explain to anybody, the library board specifically what we’re doing with that money. It’s general fund money.”
Wilson said they’d said he wanted that money for public safety so they should say what it’s being used for.
Doyon said they told library officials that the funds would broadly go toward public safety but it was premature to say specifically what it would fund.
Tryon said he was fine with saying those funds would go toward Municipal Court, “but we’re not doing that because we made some commitment to the library board.”
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Reeves said that those 3.5 mills would “pretty much cover” Municipal Court and the city attorney’s office.
Wilmarth said that earlier in their meeting they said they wanted to focus on police and fire but hadn’t included court and legal.
McKenney said they needed to build community support first if they were going for another public safety levy and shared a list of potential public safety needs that mirrored the levy requests from those departments.
“Thinking outside the box,” McKenney said, “I think we should explore a capital campaign rather than bonding.”
He said that Republic Services had approached the city interested in buying out city sanitation.
McKenney said the city could sell its sanitation division to Republic and “those proceeds could be used to build a training center and the fire stations. It’s a possibility.”
Reeves said that he and Doyon met with Republic officials who proposed taking over city sanitation, buying the city’s equipment and taking over their employees.
Reeves said they brought the offer to the city and that some other communities don’t do sanitation.
“I don’t know where we go with this topic,” he said.
Doyon said it was early in the process and public works would have something to say about it, but he needed to know if commissioners were interested in further discussions.
Tryon and Wolff said they could explore it.
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Wilson said she thought it would be a bait and switch.
Reeves said he wanted to see if the Montana Public Service Commission regulates sanitation.
According to the PSC’s website’s main page, it “strives to ensure that ratepayers have continued access to utility services that are affordable, reliable, and sustainable for the long-term. In pursuit of this goal, the PSC regulates the rates and service quality for investor owned electric, natural gas, water, waste-water, and legacy telecommunication companies.”
The PSC regulates certain kinds of transportation companies including garbage hauling.
Wilson said the city is a much better deal for sanitation and Republic is “way more expensive than the city. I just expect it to not work out as well as people think it will.”
During a 2023 discussion of a study the city commissioned to consider landfill options, Doyon said that since he’d been in Great Falls, past commissions have been hesitant to end city garbage collection services because of the likely increased cost to taxpayers in that case.
McKenney also said that taxis and buses have advertising and in some communities fire trucks and police cars have advertising so that could be part of a capital campaign.
Reeves asked if they were interested in a payment in lieu of taxes for places like Benefis that are exempt by law from property taxes.
Doyon said they could ask.
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McKenney said he thought of targeting local nonprofits for that reason in a capital campaign.
Tryon said he liked the idea of a capital campaign, but asked who would manage it.
During a break, Reeves said that he’s told McKenney, “I do not what to use our emergency vehicles as advertisements.”
He said to McKenney that he hesitates on that such as if vape shops were advertising on emergency vehicles.
McKenney said he’d heard that no police officers wanted to drive a car with a Viagra ad on it.
Moving to community development, Tryon said one of their goals to adopt a growth policy and cut red tape.
Reeves said maybe they’re too strict on soil requirements.
Wilson said “there’s a reason why they have standards like that.”
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The former planning director made recommendations for changes to the geotechnical requirements, but commissioners took no action.
Brock Cherry, current planning director, made a similar presentation last summer, but commissioners have not taken further action.
McKenney said that he’s heard of issues with city inspectors telling developers and builders different things so it was suggested to assign a single inspector to a project.
Tryon said they already addressed that.
McKenney said that he’d heard complaints of that issue recently.
“You’re not going to get two different inspectors coming in and saying two different things,” Tryon said. “You’ve got one point of contact.”
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Doyon said that there’d been turnover in the building department but he hadn’t heard complaints.
McKenney said that maybe with turnover it had fallen through the cracks because he’d heard it recently from multiple people and brought it up with Cherry a few weeks prior. McKenney said that Cherry told him that he’d also heard about it and they were working on it.
Doyon reminded commissioners that “you do know that the red tape that you talk of is requirements imposed on us” from other places like building codes, state and federal rules.
Doyon said the planning office is working with GFFR on streamlining the development process where they can.
He said years ago, because of the lack of resources, GFFR Chief Jeremy Jones had made a shift to focus on fire prevention had recently pitched more changes to strengthen prevention.
“It’s a lot,” Reeves said.
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Doyon said that if the city doesn’t have the resources to respond to emergencies, GFFR has made a deliberate effort to prevent those emergencies from happening in the first place.
“Since resources weren’t there, they shifted their effort” to prevent emergencies, Doyon said.
On communication and education, Doyon asked commissioners how they got the most feedback on decisions.
Reeves said he typically gets positive feedback in person and negative feedback via social media and email.
Tryon said most people got their city news from The Electric, which was the only media outlet in the room during the discussion, and that they should do more community reports during commission meetings because the media would pick them up.
As they were wrapping up their discussion, Wilmarth asked what their observations were.
Reeves said they were “absolutely wonderful priorities.”
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Wilmarth asked them what’s the one thing that needed to get done in the next three months to help move the city forward.
Wilson said to focus on the Legislature while its in session. Reeves agreed and said also the budget.
McKenney said they need to start working on a new public safety if they’re going to put it on the ballot next year.
Tryon said they have to consider whether or not the status quo and the way they’ve always done things is what they need to keep going.
“Things have changed,” Tryon said. “I’m not sure the status quo is the best way to go.”
McKenney said that it was a “silly thing” but he wanted to bring up changing the commission’s name to city council.
He said he didn’t want to put any effort into it, but would be fine to see it on a ballot next year.
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Wilson said she didn’t hear any confusion about and Tryon said he just didn’t like spelling commissioner.
Reeves asked if it would be possible to put a fireworks ordinance on the ballot because he got a lot of complaints on New Year’s Eve.
Doyon said “sure.”
Wilson said she was riding along with the Great Falls Police Department on New Year’s Eve and fireworks were going well outside the legal times.
“If you have ordinance against it, they’re still going to do it,” she said.
Reeves said he thinks they should put it on a ballot since the community is divided on fireworks.
“Why do us five have to make that decision,” Reeves asked.
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He asked if the city would have to pay to put that question on the ballot and said he didn’t understand that process.
Doyon asked to let staff explore it and said that if they adopt a fireworks ban, they’d need to have the ability to enforce it.
Reeves asked if they could ban fireworks for individuals and still allow commercial displays, to which staff said yes.
Lisa Kunz, city clerk, pointed out that the county allows fireworks.
McKenney said that the only thing he wanted on the ballot were things they have to put there.
If it doesn’t have to be on the ballot, “then that’s our job as commissioners to vote on it. I think that’s our job.”
