Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

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The Missoula City Council adopted the FY25 budget on August 19, 2024.  You can view the Mayor's final budget presentation and learn more about property taxes on our main website.

Read the Mayor's Budget Explainer

Budget Introduction

During the May 22 Budget and Finance Committee meeting, staff presented the budget process. Staff provided an overview of municipal budgeting and some of the basic terms involved. This is a great, short document for an introduction to our budget process.

Budget Presentations

Throughout May and June, departments will attend weekly Wednesday City Council Budget and Finance Committee meetings and present their requests for fiscal year 2025. This Engage Missoula page will be updated after each week's department presentations, with links to the summary presentation. For those who wish to diver deeper

Read the Mayor's Budget Explainer

Budget Introduction

During the May 22 Budget and Finance Committee meeting, staff presented the budget process. Staff provided an overview of municipal budgeting and some of the basic terms involved. This is a great, short document for an introduction to our budget process.

Budget Presentations

Throughout May and June, departments will attend weekly Wednesday City Council Budget and Finance Committee meetings and present their requests for fiscal year 2025. This Engage Missoula page will be updated after each week's department presentations, with links to the summary presentation. For those who wish to diver deeper, detailed documents will be posted on our main website for that week's meeting.

Budget Process and Adoption

The City's charter says that the mayor present a budget to City Council. The City Council can adopt amendments to the budget, then adopts the budget and levies the necessary taxes and sets fees. Mayor Davis will be presenting her Executive Budget on August 5. This budget will have the department requests she wants to include.

After the mayor presents her budget, City Council members may submit proposed budget amendments. Council members may want to include department requests not included in the mayor's budget, remove requests that were included in the mayor's budget, or propose other new requests. The Budget and Finance Committee will consider and vote on each proposed amendment during their meetings on August 7 and August 14. City Council will vote on the full amended budget on August 19.

Getting Involved

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.

Engage Missoula Tools

  • Ask a question on this page: submit any questions you have below and your question and the answer will be posted on this page along with your user name.
  • Comments on this page: select the comment tab and choose one of the options. Your comments will be forwarded to Mayor Davis and the City Council.
    • Leave a Comment - for any general comments about the budget.
    • Tell us how we can make the budget process easier - we want our budget process to be as transparent and easy to navigate as possible. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve, please let us know.
  • Subscribe - click the subscribe button to be notified of updates on the budget.

Other Comment Opportunities

  • See our Public Comments Page to find all the ways you can reach your elected officials. This includes meeting participation, email, phone, and online forms.

The Missoula City Council adopted the FY25 budget on August 19, 2024.  You can view the Mayor's final budget presentation and learn more about property taxes on our main website.

Feel free to ask any questions about the City's budget process, expenditures, or revenues.  Questions and answers will be visible to the public and will display your screen name.

  • Share How does the cannabis local options tax fall into Missoula’s Budget? on Facebook Share How does the cannabis local options tax fall into Missoula’s Budget? on Twitter Share How does the cannabis local options tax fall into Missoula’s Budget? on Linkedin Email How does the cannabis local options tax fall into Missoula’s Budget? link

    How does the cannabis local options tax fall into Missoula’s Budget?

    Anonymous asked 9 months ago

    The cannabis tax supports our Public Safety activities within our General Fund, which is the portion of our budget where most of our property taxes go.  It's not allocated to any specific activity.  We project revenue of about $350,000 from cannabis in FY25.

  • Share I've got a few questions/suggestions, 1. Will the city increase the budget for animal control/Humane Society/AniMeals? I personally believe you should, and begin a TNR program for cats around the city. My neighborhood has had feral cats for years and their lives are short and brutal. The cost is far too much to do it by yourself, and I believe given a few years, the amount would rapidly shrink. 2. Will the city begin/implement regulated breeding/ban to help lower the amount of animals in shelters and require all animals be spayed/neutered, perhaps offering assistance/a program for it? Pets are a very important part of everyone's lives, with more and more people seeing them less as property, and more as living, sentient creatures, capable of feeling and emotion. I would highly recommend it, and everyone I talk to, would love to see this. 3. Lastly, providing assistance programs for veterinary expenses, has the city considered this? Veterinary trips are not cheap, myself this week spending $1700 for my dog due to pancreatitis. Many people I know could never afford that, and I think an assistance program through Missoula would also help many to not have to choose between having a home, and losing their family member. on Facebook Share I've got a few questions/suggestions, 1. Will the city increase the budget for animal control/Humane Society/AniMeals? I personally believe you should, and begin a TNR program for cats around the city. My neighborhood has had feral cats for years and their lives are short and brutal. The cost is far too much to do it by yourself, and I believe given a few years, the amount would rapidly shrink. 2. Will the city begin/implement regulated breeding/ban to help lower the amount of animals in shelters and require all animals be spayed/neutered, perhaps offering assistance/a program for it? Pets are a very important part of everyone's lives, with more and more people seeing them less as property, and more as living, sentient creatures, capable of feeling and emotion. I would highly recommend it, and everyone I talk to, would love to see this. 3. Lastly, providing assistance programs for veterinary expenses, has the city considered this? Veterinary trips are not cheap, myself this week spending $1700 for my dog due to pancreatitis. Many people I know could never afford that, and I think an assistance program through Missoula would also help many to not have to choose between having a home, and losing their family member. on Twitter Share I've got a few questions/suggestions, 1. Will the city increase the budget for animal control/Humane Society/AniMeals? I personally believe you should, and begin a TNR program for cats around the city. My neighborhood has had feral cats for years and their lives are short and brutal. The cost is far too much to do it by yourself, and I believe given a few years, the amount would rapidly shrink. 2. Will the city begin/implement regulated breeding/ban to help lower the amount of animals in shelters and require all animals be spayed/neutered, perhaps offering assistance/a program for it? Pets are a very important part of everyone's lives, with more and more people seeing them less as property, and more as living, sentient creatures, capable of feeling and emotion. I would highly recommend it, and everyone I talk to, would love to see this. 3. Lastly, providing assistance programs for veterinary expenses, has the city considered this? Veterinary trips are not cheap, myself this week spending $1700 for my dog due to pancreatitis. Many people I know could never afford that, and I think an assistance program through Missoula would also help many to not have to choose between having a home, and losing their family member. on Linkedin Email I've got a few questions/suggestions, 1. Will the city increase the budget for animal control/Humane Society/AniMeals? I personally believe you should, and begin a TNR program for cats around the city. My neighborhood has had feral cats for years and their lives are short and brutal. The cost is far too much to do it by yourself, and I believe given a few years, the amount would rapidly shrink. 2. Will the city begin/implement regulated breeding/ban to help lower the amount of animals in shelters and require all animals be spayed/neutered, perhaps offering assistance/a program for it? Pets are a very important part of everyone's lives, with more and more people seeing them less as property, and more as living, sentient creatures, capable of feeling and emotion. I would highly recommend it, and everyone I talk to, would love to see this. 3. Lastly, providing assistance programs for veterinary expenses, has the city considered this? Veterinary trips are not cheap, myself this week spending $1700 for my dog due to pancreatitis. Many people I know could never afford that, and I think an assistance program through Missoula would also help many to not have to choose between having a home, and losing their family member. link

    I've got a few questions/suggestions, 1. Will the city increase the budget for animal control/Humane Society/AniMeals? I personally believe you should, and begin a TNR program for cats around the city. My neighborhood has had feral cats for years and their lives are short and brutal. The cost is far too much to do it by yourself, and I believe given a few years, the amount would rapidly shrink. 2. Will the city begin/implement regulated breeding/ban to help lower the amount of animals in shelters and require all animals be spayed/neutered, perhaps offering assistance/a program for it? Pets are a very important part of everyone's lives, with more and more people seeing them less as property, and more as living, sentient creatures, capable of feeling and emotion. I would highly recommend it, and everyone I talk to, would love to see this. 3. Lastly, providing assistance programs for veterinary expenses, has the city considered this? Veterinary trips are not cheap, myself this week spending $1700 for my dog due to pancreatitis. Many people I know could never afford that, and I think an assistance program through Missoula would also help many to not have to choose between having a home, and losing their family member.

    RyGuy asked 10 months ago

    I will share your comments and questions with Mayor Davis and the City Council.  In our budget process, department leadership and elected officials determine their needs for the coming fiscal year and present them to the mayor and council.  Then, the mayor will determine which of those requests she wants to fund, and council debates and adds or removes requests.  Missoula Public Health, including Animal Control, has already presented its requests to City Council.  The most pressing need Animal Control has identified is an expansion of shelter space.  You can see that need clearly in the photos in their presentation.  The programs you mention have not been identified by staff, and likely could not be implemented in the coming fiscal year simply because there would need to be additional investigation of costs and other needs before a budget request could be made and considered.  Again, I will pass your suggestions along to our elected officials for consideration.

    Animal Control is publicly funded and operated.  Animal Control does occasionally offer low-cost spay, neuter, and rabies clinics.  The Humane Society and AniMeals are private, non-profit organizations.  You may want to reach out to them directly to offer some of these services.  Their funding sources may allow them more flexibility than the City of Missoula and Missoula County have because we rely heavily on taxes to support our work.  State and local laws do require spaying or neutering of animals adopted from shelters and prohibit allowing unaltered cats and dogs to roam.  

  • Share Where can I learn the specifics of how budgets get allocated? This question is driven by the fire and emergency services levy. When considering it, I am wondering where the increased revenue from property taxes has gone and why it can not be used to allocate more money to the emergency services. In my understanding the number of properties in the city of Missoula and per property value has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, so property taxes should have grown as well. Why is this increase in property tax revenue not sufficient to grow the services associated with the growing population, such as fire and emergency services. Thank you@ on Facebook Share Where can I learn the specifics of how budgets get allocated? This question is driven by the fire and emergency services levy. When considering it, I am wondering where the increased revenue from property taxes has gone and why it can not be used to allocate more money to the emergency services. In my understanding the number of properties in the city of Missoula and per property value has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, so property taxes should have grown as well. Why is this increase in property tax revenue not sufficient to grow the services associated with the growing population, such as fire and emergency services. Thank you@ on Twitter Share Where can I learn the specifics of how budgets get allocated? This question is driven by the fire and emergency services levy. When considering it, I am wondering where the increased revenue from property taxes has gone and why it can not be used to allocate more money to the emergency services. In my understanding the number of properties in the city of Missoula and per property value has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, so property taxes should have grown as well. Why is this increase in property tax revenue not sufficient to grow the services associated with the growing population, such as fire and emergency services. Thank you@ on Linkedin Email Where can I learn the specifics of how budgets get allocated? This question is driven by the fire and emergency services levy. When considering it, I am wondering where the increased revenue from property taxes has gone and why it can not be used to allocate more money to the emergency services. In my understanding the number of properties in the city of Missoula and per property value has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, so property taxes should have grown as well. Why is this increase in property tax revenue not sufficient to grow the services associated with the growing population, such as fire and emergency services. Thank you@ link

    Where can I learn the specifics of how budgets get allocated? This question is driven by the fire and emergency services levy. When considering it, I am wondering where the increased revenue from property taxes has gone and why it can not be used to allocate more money to the emergency services. In my understanding the number of properties in the city of Missoula and per property value has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, so property taxes should have grown as well. Why is this increase in property tax revenue not sufficient to grow the services associated with the growing population, such as fire and emergency services. Thank you@

    Svetlana asked 11 months ago

    The easiest place to view a snapshot of our budget is the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget in Brief document. Page 4 shows how last year’s new revenue was allocated. The majority of it went to wages for existing staff for employee recruitment and retention. Revenue from newly taxable property doesn’t keep up with increased expenses.  The City’s annual salary increase for general fund services is typically higher than new tax base revenue.  This requires a tax increase just to maintain the level of service and retain quality staff.  The sliver of purple in the chart below shows the amount of new revenue we receive each year compared to our existing tax base, shown in light blue.

    Chart showing that newly taxable property is very small compared to our overall tax base.


    Residential property values in Missoula and across the state increased significantly in 2023.  At the same time, many commercial properties and centrally assessed properties such as railroads, telecommunications, and energy, decreased in value.  That leaves residential property taxpayers picking up a larger share of taxes than they have in the past.  That aspect of taxation is out of the City's control.  We do work with our legislative delegation to advocate for changes in tax structure at the state level.

    Residential taxpayers made up 42.9% of the tax base in 1999 and 64.3% of the tax base in 2023.