Budget in Brief

 

Budget Kickoff

Mayor Jordan Hess presented his fiscal year 2024 (FY24) executive budget to City Council on June 28, stating his priorities in his budget letter. The budget focuses on programs and projects that will move the needle on housing, climate, and equity. This is the first step in the City's budgeting process, which will continue throughout the summer and conclude with City Council adoption of the budget on August 21. Please use the tools on this page to provide feedback or ask questions about the process. You can also participate in in all City meetings either online or in person.

Understanding the Budget & Getting Involved

The City's charter requires that the mayor presents a budget to City Council. The City Council can adopt amendments to the budget, then adopts the budget and levies the necessary taxes and fees.

This project on Engage Missoula will have high-level overviews of the budget and its process. More importantly, the tools on this page provide an interactive space for residents to bring questions for staff or share comments with elected officials, as a supplement to our public meetings.

Detailed budget documents will appear on our main City website. Each week, that site will be updated with the content that will be discussed in that week's committee meetings. Residents who want to dive deep into the details of the City's budget will find that information on our main site, with more added throughout the summer.

Here are a few documents to help residents navigate the budget process.

• Budget guide - a guide to some of the terms we use in our budget process and a key to reading budget documents.
• Baseline changes - a list of existing department costs that are changing. This is where increases for existing services, such as electricity or software costs, will appear.
• Budget analysis - a summary of the City's general fund, road district, and park district showing baseline increases and the cost of new requests funded in Mayor Hess's budget. As City Council adds or removes items from the budget later in the summer, that column will be updated.