MISSOULA — The financial cost of the Missoula City Council's ordinance on crisis camping would nearly double in the new fiscal year to fund the staffing and resources needed to manage the program, city officials said Wednesday.
The city early this summer adopted its ordinance on crisis camping, establishing a new policy that regulates the time, manner and place in which sheltering in parks and on public property is permissible.
City officials said roughly $359,000 was budgeted for the program in the current fiscal year. But next year, the cost of the program is set to double as various departments seek the resources they need to carry out the demands of the ordinance.
“When we look at both budgets combined, it's about $1 million in expenses to begin those implementation tasks in the ordinance, and continue doing what we've been doing throughout our encampment response in FY 24,” said Eran Pehan, the city's director of development. “Some of these programs are quite staff intensive.”
Parks and Recreation is seeking $298,000 to manage the city's ordinance on sheltering in parks. That includes $72,000 in ongoing costs to hire a new employee to clean and restock “comfort stations,” which the city plans to place in certain parks.
It also includes $70,000 in ongoing costs to deal with trash, needles, waste and signage, among other things. The largest ongoing cost includes $126,000 to rent, install and service the comfort stations, the needle drops, and to adjust park irrigation around overnight campers.
“There are a number of items in both parks and code enforcement that the resolution and ordinance are mandating staff to do,” said Donna Gaukler, director of Parks and Recreation. “We're looking at standing up eight comfort stations. They'll be at sites where we can actually get large septic and garbage trucks into them.”
The city's new ordinance also permits camping in vehicles in the public right of way, so long as the camper has secured the proper permit and follows the rules within the ordinance. But ensuring that happens also carries a cost, the city said.
To manage the vehicle camping program, the city is seeking $152,000 to hire two additional employees. It's an ongoing expense that covers the cost of educating, permitting, cleaning and ensuring camping compliance.
The request also includes $11,000 for protective gear, fuel and office supplies, and $73,000 to contract cleanup, garbage and towing assistance, Pehan said.
“There are quite a few conditions those campers need to meet that requires staff to physically go to each site or location,” Pehan said. “We check back to ensure they move within 30 days to another site. There's a lot of in-the-field work for our team, and implementation on the back end.”
Pehan said the city last year spent around $50,000 towing dilapidated, abandoned or unmovable camping vehicles. She expects that cost to double or triple down the road, as the city may have to tow unmovable campers to another location every few months to ensure the camper complies with the rules.
The request also includes $107,000 for vehicles and technology needed by the two new employees.
“We're really in the early stages of figuring out the vehicle sheltering program,” said Pehan. “We hope to get better compliance and management around all the things that happen when folks shelter in their vehicle. It's going to take resources to manage the system. Our ability to deploy this will depend on the level of resources we have.”
City officials have repeated over the past few months that the new fiscal year budget will be tight and that a tax increase is likely. They couldn't say on Wednesday where the funding needed to cover the new and ongoing expenses related to the camping ordinance will come from.
The cost of enforcing the camping ordinance doesn't include other costs, such as police and fire. Nor does it include the city's cost of operating the Johnson Street shelter. How the city will fund that facility in the new fiscal year hasn't been detailed.
“We're trying to assess the actual ongoing cost of the existing (camping) program versus the added capacity,” said city CAO Dale Bickell. “To add this capacity, there will be a necessary increase to both the road and park district, otherwise we'll have to curtail the actual effort in streets and parks work to the point where you'd have a noticeable level of service reduction.”
Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis is expected to reveal her executive budget on Monday, which could suggest how the camping requests will be funded, along with any potential tax increase.
“Five or six years ago, we weren't putting nearly the amount of resources into this (homelessness),” said council member Gwen Jones. “Now, a huge part of our budget is going to this when we're already in a really stretched time. It's something we should be messaging to federal and state officials.”
