Missoula City Budget Game Running out of Room

On Tuesday, February 11, some Missoulians will get a chance to influence the 2015 city budget by playing a budget game, however, the venue is already nearly out of room.

"We actually have over 150 people already signed up and a limit of only 200 spaces so if people are interested they should defiantly sign up and they can do that via the website which is strkingly.com/mslabudgetgame," said Missoula city councilwoman Caitlin Copple.

The game, put on in coordination with a non-profit called Every Voice Engaged, will group citizens into tables of ten and allow them to allocate resources for a model (simplified) Missoula city budget. Copple says that many of the ideas submitted by the public may actually be put into the real budget.

"Ultimately, of course, it's the city council and the mayor that set the budget, but, in other communities where this has happened, for example San Jose, 83 percent of the recommendations that came from the exercise ended up being reflected in the budget," Coppe said.

The event will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the University Center Ballroom at the University of Montana on Tuesday, February 11. It will also include a brief overview of the actual Missoula city budget including pie charts and graphs of how the city allocates money. Below are some of the slides from that presentation: