Council reviews budget priorities for parks, streets
A new playground was recently constructed at Armory Park. (Heidi Desch/Whitefish Pilot)
The Whitefish City Council had its second meeting to discuss and review the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget last week. No one from the public attended in person or online.
Whitefish City Manager Dana Smith’s budget update was followed by information about the resort tax fund and reports from the municipal court, the Whitefish Trail, Parks and Recreation and Public Works.
Currently, the FY 2025 total appropriated budget is $50,850,004. Compared to the prior fiscal year, FY 2025 expenditures are set to increase $760,210.
Parks and Recreation currently has three capital projects. Parks and Recreation Director Maria Butts said the Armory Park project, after extensive design and engineering, is ready to move into the implementation phase.
The approximately $3 million project will add softball fields, a small additional parking lot, a picnic area with shelters, paths, a pavilion and a restroom to the park.
Parks and Recreation is also working on the Riverbend Trail and the Bike Path Maintenance Plan. Butts added that it is time for the Stumptown Ice Den to have a new roof, as it has been leaking for years.
The proposed budget allotted $59,600 for the Whitefish Trail for operating and construction.
“This year we are focusing on development out at Smith Lake. We did improvements at the foot of the lake last year,” executive director of Whitefish Legacy Partners Heidi Van Everen
said. “We’re also adding more and more recreation trails.
“We’re thankful for the resort tax money,” she added. “We’re happy to get so much support from the community … for recreation and conservation.”
Whitefish Public Works Director Craig Workman reported that the Karrow Avenue reconstruction project is underway and reminded people that “if you don’t live within the confines of the construction, you have to go around.”
Next up on the resort tax priority list for streets is either Armory Road or Sixth Street, both of which are out to bid.
“Both are a high priority,” Workman said. “We’ll have to figure out which one to do next.”
The reallocation of resort tax revenues begins on Feb. 1, 2025, so some of those funds will be available for roadway maintenance and reconstruction projects.
Workman shared current infrastructure statistics and the department's budgets. The preliminary street fund has expenses of $4.4 million, in part, to care for 60 miles of roadway and 7 miles of alleys.
The proposed FY25 budget for streets includes $700,000 for viaduct improvements, $300,000 for the Birch Point quiet zone, $1.5 million for the completion of the Monegan Road project and $58,000 for capital equipment, the bulk of which will be used to buy a dump truck.
The city also has a $1.2 million mill and overlay project currently out to bid with hopes to award the project in July.
“We’re expecting to do a number of streets,” Workman said. “In round numbers, it's going to be about a mile of mill and overlay work.”
The proposed water fund budget has expenses of $7.3 million. The city has 72 miles of water main with 750 hydrants.
A little more than $5 million is expected to be expended from the wastewater fund and no rate increase is expected. The city has 60 miles gravity main, 15 miles force main and 1,450 manholes.
Workman said Aqua-Aerobic, the manufacturer of the wastewater treatment system in use at the Whitefish facility, monitors the plant and recently gave a good report.
“The Whitefish plant had the highest performance in May of 2024. So we’re looking good,” Workman said. “We finally have this plant dialed in to the point where we … are treating wastewater without added chemicals.”
The discussion about how to go about bringing employee wages up to market rate that was begun at the first budget work session was continued. Smith said if wages for all the positions in the city were adjusted to at least 90% of market rate, the increase to taxes is “not that significant compared to what our mills are.”
The estimated value of one mill is $81,067 and one mill would be needed in order to cover the cost of the wage increase.
“The total tax increase would include the preliminary budget, this one mill and three quarters of a mill for the commuter bus, because that's about what you would need for $60,000 a year,” Smith said.
The total property tax increase would be $102.58 per year for a home with a valuation of $800,000.
The council will adopt the final budget in August.