Public Invited to Preview of the Upcoming Missoula County Budget

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The first opportunity to hear about the fiscal year 2025 Missoula County budget will be on Monday, June 20 in the Sophie Moiese Room at the Missoula County Courthouse.

I spoke with Missoula County Chief Administrative Officer Chris Lounsbury on Friday for a preview of the upcoming budget presentation.

Your First Opportunity to Hear About the County Budget will be June 20

“We are asking people to get together so that we can really get some great input into our budget process this year,” began Lounsbury. “Last year, the commissioners really looked hard at some critical service needs we had around law enforcement and the fact that we were having a hard time recruiting officers for our detention facility, for our county attorney's office, and for our Sheriff's Office. This year, there are still challenges in lots of different places, and we want an opportunity for the public to come and hear about what some of those challenges are, but also to hear from the public about what their expectations are for the level of service that the county provides as we head into budget season.”

Lounsbury said the presentation on June 20 will help to clarify the needs the county faces in fiscal year 2025.

“Actually, if you come to our budget presentation, we're going to talk about a little bit about what some of those real needs are,” he said. “We're going to talk about a lot of the services that we don't have control over, because we absolutely have to provide those services. In addition, we’ll discuss the very little bit of space where we can talk about things that are more discretionary, things we can provide if the community finds them a value versus have to provide, because the state law says we have to do it.”

Each Resident pays City, County and State Taxes

Lounsbury acknowledged that the city lies wholly within the county and each resident must pay both city and county taxes.

“It's true, you pay city, county and state, as well as school, taxes, so they’re all in there,” he said. “There are a lot of competing needs from all of those levels of government, and there are some of those services when you're a city resident that only the county provides, and then some of those services only the city provides. And so how do we find that balance?

Lounsbury repeated the time and place for the initial Missoula County budget presentation.

The Public is Encouraged to Come and Hear About the County Budget

“Our first opportunity here for folks to get that ‘Budget 101 and hear from staff is on June 20 in the Sophie Moiese Room, which is located in the Missoula County Courthouse, and we're going to start at about 6:00 p.m. that night.”

There will also be a later opportunity for another public meeting to discuss the budget.