MISSOULA – We are continuing our profiles on Missoula's mayoral candidates ahead of the municipal primary election on September 12.
MTN's Kathryn Roley recently asked the five candidates for their thoughts on police funding and staffing.
Shawn Knopp, the project manager at Montana Glass says that the city’s number one priority should be to its first responders, and when it comes to the city budget, the budget should have the police and fire departments at the top of the list.
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“The City’s number one priority is first responder efforts. So, they should get what they need upfront before anything else gets funded. There’s places we could pull money and give police higher wages so we can give them higher wages and compete with bigger cities, there's many places in that budget we could cut spending.”
Current city council member and local realtor Mike Nugent says that it’s time for Missoula to fulfill obligations that the city has pushed off.
"Relationships with first responders are really important and I think we’re seeing right now in Missoula that we’ve put off some of our obligations to those groups down the road and their union contract were up this year. And we’ve had to really bring them up to be market rate to treat people fairly, I think that’s important. We also — on the fire side — just have not met growth appropriately and that’s something that we need to correct because it’s not [the fire department's] fault that years of pushing the can down the road have gotten us to this point.”
Current Mayor Jordan Hess said that it’s important that the wages for police remain at a market rate to compete with bigger cities.
“In our negotiations with the Missoula Police Department Association, we were able to get to a 10% wage increase. They were below their market rate and so we were able to get them closer to their market rate. That'll help with retinting quality officers, that will help with quality of life, that will help with a lot of those issues. We have a really good police department here in Missoula and we need to make sure that it stays that way. And we need to continue to innovate and continue to support [the] officers in the department and they continue to proactively serve the community.”
Brandi Atanasoff says that bringing down the prices of condos and houses could be a way to retain police and fire personnel in Missoula.
"The things that there are, is like trying to find condos that are priced at a reasonable price. But I’ve talked to [a] real estate agent and they told me that most positions in Missoula are not even able to buy a condo right now. And the way to stop that is by making -- talking [to] the realtors about what prices houses are selling for.”
Homeward Executive Director Andrea Davis says that the best way to retain and attract law enforcement is to find a way to manage the limited budget the city of Missoula faces.
“We need to prioritize the cost of living for all of our citizens — and in particular we need to make sure that our public safety employees, municipal employees, can live in the community that they work. But we need to be very cognizant about the fact that yes, there are communities around us that are maybe playing for wages -- and how is it that we can figure out within our very limited city budget. That is how we can make sure we’re remaining competitive.”
The municipal primary election will take place on September 12, 2023.
