Could the commissioners please check in?

Commissioner Gerbrand.

Okay.

I'll bring the Butte Silver Bouncil of Commissioners Committee of the C whole meeting to order for Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026.

Can we please have a roll call?

One presiding, ten present, one absent.

Okay, please let the record reflect uh Commissioner O'Leary is excused for tonight.

Uh Commissioner Walker, would you please lead us in the prayer and the pledge?

And two of the approvals of standards under God is to next item on tonight's agenda is any public comment on any items that are on tonight's agenda.

If there's any member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's on the agenda, now would be your opportunity.

Okay.

Seeing none, I'll move on to the report of the chair, and I'm just gonna keep on rolling on to section one, bid openings, public hearings and or presentations.

We do have a couple of public hearings.

Uh we have communication twenty twenty-six-171 and communication twenty twenty-six-one seven-two.

County attorney Enruth, do we have proof of publication?

Chairman Morgan, yes, we have proof of publication for both communications.

Okay, thank you.

The first one, uh communication number 2026-171.

Karen Hassler, Finance and Budget Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on April 22nd, 2026 for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 2526 budget to allow for increased expenditures of unanticipated revenue in the parking garage budget in the amount of 21,000 dollars.

Um Director Hassler.

Uh thank you, uh Chairman Morgan, members of council.

Um again, as you just stated, the purpose of this public hearing is to take public comment on amending the 25.

26 fiscal year budget for unanticipated revenues and expenditures for the parking garage.

Um the budget amendments are due to increased revenue uh collected for permits and violations in the amount of 21,000.

Um the increased expenditures are related to our revenue sharing contract that we have with municipal parking services.

Okay.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions for Director Hassler?

Uh Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Not really a question, just Jack to see that there's revenue going back into the parking fund.

And so nice job, David.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay, at this time I'll open the public hearing for proponents.

If there's any member of the public that would like to speak as a proponent for communication 2026 171, that would be your opportunity.

Okay, I'll move on to opponents.

If there's a member of the public that would like to speak in opposition to communication 2026, 171, that would be your opportunity.

First call for opponents.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.

Number two, communication 2026-172.

Karen Hassler Finance and Budget Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on April 22nd, 2026 for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 25-26 budget to allow for increased expenditures of unanticipated revenue in the parking commission budget in the amount of $25,000.

Thought you left.

I'm just that short.

Thank you, Commissioner Morgan.

Um, members of council.

Again, this public hearing is to take um public comment on amending the fiscal year 25-26 budget for unanticipated revenues and expenditures in the parking commission fund.

Um the budget amendments are due to increased revenues collected for permits and violations in the amount of $25,000.

The increased expenditures again are related to our revenue sharing contract with municipal parking services.

Thank you, Director Hassler.

Is there any questions or comments from the commissioners?

Okay.

Seeing none, I will open the public hearing for communication 26172.

If there's a member of the public that would like to speak as a proponent of this, now would be your opportunity.

First call for proponents.

Second call for proponents, third and final call for proponents.

Please state your name and address for the record.

Ready for us, 2000 Roberts Avenue.

I am a proponent of this.

Thank you.

Okay.

Third and final call for proponents.

Okay.

I'll move on to O.

Okay.

I'll move on to Opponents.

If there's any member of the public that would like to speak in opposition of communication 2026-172, now would be your opportunity.

First call for opponents.

Second call for opponents.

Third and final call for opponents.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing for communication 2026-172.

Moving on to presentations.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Commissioners, I'd like to welcome Dave Strohmeyer and uh have him do a presentation today of the work that the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority has done up to date.

So welcome Dave.

Mr.

Strelmeyer, welcome.

Oh there's a button on the bottom of that.

Yep, there you go.

Okay.

Gotta acclimate myself to your technology.

So Commissioner Morgan, Commissioners Chief Executive Gallagher.

Thank you so much for being uh allowing us to be here tonight.

I'm uh Dave Strommeyer, Missoula County Commissioner.

I'm also chairman of the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority.

I am joined tonight by our senior policy advisor for the rail authority, Dan Bucks, who you might know as being the former director of revenue for the state of Montana a number of years ago.

I don't know how many of you had experience on the commission here in 2020 or were on the commission.

For those of you who were, uh this might be a little bit of a recap.

For those of you who weren't, this is going to be maybe some new information.

So the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority.

Uh and thank you, Butte Silverbow County, for being one of the founding members of the authority.

Uh, you have been an uh really an anchor for southwestern Montana for us for the past five years, and part of the origin story of the authority rests here in Butte.

So roll back the clock, 1979.

That is the last time that Butte and Southern Montana saw passenger rail service, regular daily passenger rail service.

It was suspended in that year, 46 years ago, and over the past four decades, there have been myriad attempts to try to bring passenger rail service back to our neck of the woods.

Uh, none of them gaining traction.

Fast forward uh to the uh late 2010s, uh, probably in the 2018-19 era, counties across southern Montana came together and discovered that there was a law on the books from 1993, uh MCA code that allows counties and only counties to establish regional rail authorities.

And that's exactly what happened in November of 2020 when 12 counties, including Butte Silverbow, came together and established the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, the first ever regional rail authority in the history of the state of Montana with a mission to provide for the re-establishment of safe, reliable, and sustainable passenger rail service across Southern Montana that increases opportunity and contributes to the health and well-being of people across the state.

And this is not simply restoring what existed in 1979.

It's looking at renewing passenger rail service that meets the needs of 21st century constituency, not only east-west, but the counties that we invited collectively to join the rail authority included those counties by bisected by the former North Coast Hiote or counties that once saw north-south connectivity because at one point in time there was passenger rail service, as some of you may know, between Salt Lake City and Butte, or between Denver and Billings.

So we wanted to capture that geographic region of the state in this mission and vision of what we are doing.

And make no mistake about it, one of the important factors of Butte Silverbow County being at the table with us this past five years has been a recognition that this geographic area really is the gateway to uh southwest Montana for passenger rail.

I'll show you uh a couple slides here in a second that will uh depict what the routing currently is under investigation, what that looks like, and it will be admittedly a heavy lift at some point in time to open up Home State Pass.

Uh but having said that, having Butte Silverbow County at the table to think not only about direct connections by rail, but what are the connecting services that will connect regions of the state uh that might not be directly served by rail but need those sort of connecting services, transit services, et cetera, to the closest rail station.

To do a little bit of level setting, I'm gonna ask Dan to come up to the microphone here and uh just uh help us all think through what are those advantages of passenger rail and why are we doing what it is that we're doing.

Yes.

Mr.

Chairman, members of your of the council, I'm Dan Bucks.

Um why are we here talking about passenger rail?

And basically, it's because for the majority of trips that are taken, passenger rail is a better, superior form of transportation over other forms of transportation.

Now, there's really no comparison with air service because within this region and certainly within our state, we don't have direct services between our major communities.

We don't have direct air service from Butte to Billings or from Butte to Fargo, North Dakota or Bismarck or from here to Spokane.

That doesn't exist, so that isn't even within the comparison realm.

Uh passenger rail is clearly superior to air service for connecting small and large communities together.

So that's one of its uh advantages.

It enhances public safety.

Uh it's 18 times safer than motor vehicle travel.

18 times safer in ordinary weather conditions.

When in moderate icing, crashes increase by 800 percent.

So the advantage to rail is even greater than 18 times safer in bad weather than good.

Passenger rail revitalizes communities that are small and large alike.

It lifts up all communities together, including the rural communities that are left behind by the highway system.

The interstate highway system and the other highway investments have tended to concentrate growth in this country in this region in the larger communities and have decimated many rural communities or at least hampered their growth and development.

Passenger rail does a better job of balanced development under rural and urban communities alike.

It provides real weather resilient, reliable access to health care, education, and other vital services for more people.

It's no secret that health care resources are being concentrated increasingly in fewer and fewer places, and people have to travel more to get the health care that they need.

And the motor vehicle system does not work reliably for people to get their appointments, and it impacts health care negatively.

Passenger rail largely addresses that problem and what works better for people needing health care and education and other vital resources.

Passenger rail is the only form of transportation where you can really travel and work and do real work at the same time.

And therefore, for employers or self-employed people who are traveling for business, they can work while it's on while they're on a train.

Whereas you cannot do that in a motor vehicle.

And because it is also more energy efficient, there's more uh more uh uh efficiencies in economies of scale and an operation of the routes, it is less expensive to build and operate passenger rail than other forms of transportation.

And finally, it is the only form of transportation where while you're traveling, you can meet people that you never expected to meet before in your life.

It it increases uh interaction and understanding among people, a sense of community and social cohesion.

We just finished a study of a public engagement process on the Empire Builder line, and one of the findings of that from the representation of the people themselves, is that it is that the Empire Builder has created a real sense of identity that uh permeates the high line in Montana, and it's the glue that holds people together because they can meet while they travel and get to know each other, and that's a simple thing, but it's a very important thing in this time of a very divided country.

Thank you.

So the rail authority itself, and first I want to give a shout out to uh the directors that you have appointed to serve on our rail authority board.

Uh Sean Frederickson, who spoke earlier, was our initial director from Butte Silverbow County, and Dan Olson now serves as your director on our board.

The rail authority is a government agency.

Uh some folks don't realize that, but we are a subdivision of state government, and we are basically the default rail planning agency in the state of Montana.

Not to say that Montana Department of Transportation does not do some rail planning, but we have uh embraced this thoroughly, and there are three main buckets of work that we do.

Network expansion, high performance rail, workforce development, and I'm gonna go on high speed rail to get through this uh rapidly because I know you guys have a long agenda tonight.

Network expansion.

This is really at the heart of what we do as the rail authority.

And a couple of our signature accomplishments in the past five years were one working with Congress to get into the bipartisan infrastructure law language that would direct the U.S.

Department of Transportation to conduct a nationwide study of restoring discontinued Amtrak routes or creating new routes.

That study uh came out uh and was delivered to Congress, the final study in January of last year, and I won't go through all of the points on here, but the the take-home message is that Montana is the beneficiary of two of these 15 long-distance routes recommended to be restored.

One, the former North Coast Hio Author route, right here through Southern Montana, and a second route from El Paso, Texas, up to Billings through Denver.

But the other thing, uh, just to draw your attention to is the study recommended that an evaluation occur, evaluation uh of service options through Butte.

Hold that thought.

So this is a study with recommendations delivered to Congress.

The second big accomplishment over the past five years was our inclusion in something called the Quarter Identification and Development Program of the Federal Railroad Administration.

This is not just a study, this is actually the mechanism by which USDOT moves rail projects, intercity passenger rail projects from concept to design to being a shovel-ready project ready for implementation.

Uh, the rail authority, your rail authority applied to the Federal Railroad Administration for inclusion of the former North Coast Hio Author route in this corridor identification program.

We were accepted.

Uh, we were one of sixty-nine routes accepted into the program.

The only new long distance route in the United States accepted into the program.

And again, I'll just draw your attention to the fact that one of the route alternatives, even though it will be a heavy lift, admittedly, is through Butte over Home State Pass.

So hopefully later this year, we will actually kick off creating a service development plan for this route.

These sorts of route analyses will occur during that period.

This is probably going to be a two-year process, followed by another phase, which will be preliminary engineering in NEPA.

Something we call the corridor of opportunity.

And Dan, I think I'll just uh sail through this.

As you can see on the map, the shaded areas, basically 90 miles on either side of the major rail corridor, the east-west corridor of what we're now calling the Big Sky North Coast Corridor that connects Chicago to the Pacific Northwest through southern North Dakota and southern Montana.

And why this is so important is on this uh within this kind of 90 mile radius on either side of the main line, we're seeing this as an opportunity to provide uh connections, those first last mile connections to provide the benefits, the economic and social benefits realized right along the line in an outward extension uh surrounding that line.

Uh so the the basic premise here is how do we connect up folks who will benefit from not only just a long distance route, but many of the individuals who will be utilizing this line are going to be using it for kind of quasi commuter service because as Dan will mention in a second, we're shooting for twice daily service.

That means two trains in each direction, which is more service than what you see with the Empire Builder today along the high line of Montana.

Uh Dan, uh, if you want to go through the objectives of what we're trying to accomplish.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dave.

Uh we're these are the principal design executive uh objectives that are will guide the development of the route.

As Dave mentioned, one of those key objectives is twice daily service in each direction, so that people could, for example, in Miles City could go to Billings if the schedules work right in the morning, go to a medical appointment or other types of appointment or attend an event and then return in the evening without a lodging stay.

That doesn't happen now with long distance routes.

Double the service uh in each direction and on time.

That's a critical factor for people to be able to plan their schedules and uh around uh the uh train running on time.

That isn't achieved by long distance in this country today, but we plan to achieve it with this route.

Dave has also already talked about the corridor of opportunity, connecting services available at the time the route starts running.

Twenty-first century train sets, not old worn-out equipment, but brand new equipment designed for the future, not for the past, with advanced propulsion systems with the greatest energy efficiency possible, and more service choices and capacity for customers so that they can find the right price for travel that fits and and the right service that fits their budgets and their needs.

Small parcel delivery service to serve small businesses and farmers and ranchers who need to get equipment reliably to them for repairs, who need to be able to deliver small products, the specialized products, be it agricultural or be it manufactured products reliably and inexpensively through rail and other examples of that will benefit small businesses and farms, farms and ranches and uh agricultural businesses of different types in our state.

And the uh effective coordination with freight is essential.

We want high performance freight.

Dave will talk about that a little bit more, I believe, so that we do not we enhance the freight service as we inaugurate passenger rail service.

And all of this is designed to maximize ridership, revenue return, and aim for financial viability for this particular route.

We hope to be a model for the rest of the country.

And we'll just take a few more minutes with your permission to wrap up here.

I again I am cognizant of your busy agenda tonight.

The second bucket of things that the rail authorities involved with is what we call high performance rail, and this is recognizing that there need not be this oppositional uh fight between freight and passenger, and uh, and in fact, by investing in passenger rail, uh, we can actually uh enhance the opportunity for freight systems.

So, what are we doing in that regard?

We're actually doing some work up along the high line uh on the Empire Builder route, recognizing that there are bottlenecks up there, particularly in the Malta area that that clog up the system for both freight and passenger trains.

So we teamed up with Amtrak and BNSF and we secured a $15 million grant last year that hopefully will break ground this uh summer to uh invest in infrastructure around Malta that will make for more of a free-flowing system of both freight and passenger trains.

We uh actually just applied for another 41 million dollar uh grant with Amtrak and BNSF to do something similar uh in the Haver area.

And finally, workforce development, recognizing that we can't just have our blinders on and be looking at what we're trying to accomplish right at this moment, but how do we create the workforce, the rail workforce of the 21st century that's going to be ready for us when we deploy this uh eight or ten years from now because it is going to take that long to get this going.

And so we teamed up with the Western Transportation Institute out of MSU and some other uh collegiate partners and secured a six million dollar grant that we're going to be using for workforce development, and we are going to in the next uh year or two be reaching out to academic institutions uh across Montana, including Montana Tech, our flagship universities, community colleges, tribal colleges, to look at programming to create workforce opportunities for uh the rail industry.

Well, what are we going to be doing in 2026?

And uh here we will zero in on wrapping up.

We're going to continue policy work, as many of you may know.

This is a big year for transportation.

The five-year authorization, surface transportation uh authorization ends in September of this year, and this is where money federal dollars flow for all surface transportation projects, rail and highway included, and so we're wanting to position ourselves in that bill to make sure we have an implementation path uh post-plan.

Uh we are working on uh this first last mile concept that I mentioned earlier, and uh continuing to work through the planning of the quarter identification project, federal and state engagement, and we will also be launching uh a nonprofit affiliate of the rail authority this year called the Big Sky Rail Foundation.

And if all of you are looking for a good time in August, we as the Rail Authority will be having our annual conference, and uh it's in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Economic Regions uh Pacific Greater Northwest Rail Summit to be held at the Montana Heritage Center in Helena.

So come on out for that.

Uh we hope to have uh some high-profile guest speakers, uh, one of which uh tentatively is uh locked in, Tim Shehey, Senator Tim Shehey, who's been a long time supporter of our work.

And with that, uh, if uh if you uh want to ask us any questions, we stand ready or not.

Uh that is fine too.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Strohmeyer, for that great presentation.

I hope that one day we have a presentation of you know breaking the the wine bottle over a uh railroad car or something so that we can say that we got this done.

I have a question for you.

As far as funding for this goes, I'm assuming that congressional funding would have to be put into this.

What is that amount look like to do it?

Do you have a ballpark?

Uh Mr.

Chair and uh and commissioners.

Uh yes and no.

So what we do know for certain right now is that to create the service development plan for this route, and this is just the planning phase, is going to be about an $11 million undertaking.

This is a 2300 mile-long project, so that is not necessarily a big number in in the grand scheme of things.

Uh in that process, we're going to be identifying capital costs, infrastructure needs uh for this route.

If we're talking uh, say a home stake pass, that's going to be a heavy lift to bring back that section of rail line to a usable state.

Uh in other cases, we're going to be looking at uh uh uh stations.

We're going to have to come up with estimates as far as the trains themselves.

So the sh the answer to the the bigger question, what is it going to cost ultimately by way of federal investment and capital costs?

We don't know at this juncture.

It's not going to be inexpensive, but uh we certainly believe that the investment is worth the effort.

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Is there any questions from the commissioners?

Commissioner Callahan.

Let me move that.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, fellows, for coming here.

I I remember when they first started putting this thing together and asked us to be a member.

And people thought, rail.

Passenger trains, they didn't think they'd see them again.

And uh so we appreciate your effort.

You guys have done a ton of work.

You've come a long way.

I mean, all these government grants and stuff and everything.

Uh I just saw something on 60 Minutes last week about our country and rail.

There's 21 countries around the world that have high speed rail.

We're not one of them.

Our government isn't invested in enough money into rail.

You guys got a tough hill to climb and you're working your tails off.

I see that by the work how far you've come in this amount of time.

Cuts to our administration and everything.

Does this set you guys back any?

How are we?

How's that?

How are you holding up to that?

Mr.

Showe Meyer.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, Commissioner Callahan.

Uh I love that question.

If you were to look at a map of the rail authority here in the state of Montana, which I did not include in this presentation, the 20 counties that we now have in the Rail Authority spanning the entire 600 mile breadth of Montana from Sanders County to Weibo County, you will not see a more diverse array of counties.

It's like what when is the last time that me sitting in Missoula County collaborated with a Dawson County?

Never.

It is not never happened except with this issue.

And so politically speaking, uh the majority of counties in the rail authority are about as bright red politically as you can get, very rural, and yet we have come together uh uh rallying around this issue.

So thus far, some of the the somewhat drastic uh clawbacks we've seen in other federal programs have not occurred as it relates to rail.

And uh I I have unabashedly with some of our elected officials in uh Washington DC made the pitch to them, let us make passenger rail great again.

So uh I I think uh I think there is actually some uh great bipartisan buy-in for what it is that we're working on, and I'm encouraged by that.

Thank you.

We appreciate all the work you're putting into it because you've put a ton of work into it so far.

It's been a team effort.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

Well, seeing none, thank you very much for the presentation and look forward to the future um with passenger rail.

Thanks for having us, and I send my greetings from my uh commissioner colleagues in Missoula County.

So thank you.

Great, thank you.

Next item on tonight's agenda is number four, communication 2026-178.

Eric Mankins, Commissioner District 9 requesting council commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 2026.

Committee of the whole meeting for chairwoman Ray Lynn Brandle of the Study Commission to provide an update on the study commission's findings.

Commissioner Mankins, any thank you, um, Chair Morgan.

Uh thank you, um Miss Brandle, and I see other committee members being here.

Um glad that you're here, and just to give this uh updated version as we talked prior to this, I thought it would just be a good platform to get it out here the first time, get it recorded so if the other public could not make some of your meetings, and hopefully you'll discuss those those different times and agendas that you can also go on with that.

So thank you.

Miss Brandle.

Absolutely, thank you, Mr.

Mankins, Chair Morgan, and members of the commission.

I'm happy to be before you tonight.

As you've said, Mr.

Mankins, I do have uh members of the commission with me tonight, and we would like to go over our presentation regarding our preliminary preliminary report.

Um, Chair Morgan, if I may, I do have printed copies of that report that I'd like to um distribute.

Absolutely.

You guys can all you know read that right now and be right.

No, just kidding.

It's quite it's quite large.

There's a quiz after, right?

Yeah, there's a quiz after for sure.

Um I'm just going to be fudging around because I've never ran the PowerPoint down here.

So which does it does anybody know which button?

All right.

So thank you again for having us tonight.

As you um are all aware, we are elected last November.

We took our chairs in January, and I have to make a um call out and a shout out of thanks to my commission because pretty much since January, we have been in that seat every Monday night.

There have been very few Mondays that we have skipped, and we've also done extensive community outreach and a lot of background research.

So the people have done the work, and we're very, very pleased to have this report finally coming together.

Um these are our commission members, and then our scope of work was to review our government structure, look at the charter in the language within the charter, consider operations, and then where our outcomes were to provide recommendations to community and then potential ballot initiatives that our community could vote upon to change the charter, and of course, this report to community.

So tonight what we have before you is indeed the preliminary report, and so I want to make sure that I put the emphasis on the word preliminary.

So we are still in the deliberations phase, we're still in the information gathering stage.

So no decisions in this report are final, and nor are they fully recommended to go to ballot yet.

We are still deliberating.

Um part of that process is to make sure that we continue to hear from community and from the persons that we have been interviewing along the way.

So, what did our process look like?

We had the weekly public meetings, as I stated.

We started out with department head interviews, and we heard from every department head.

I'm very pleased that everybody came before us and were generous with their time.

We heard from many of you as well.

You came before us, and we heard from our executive branch elected officials.

Then we started our public outreach and surveys.

That public outreach included face-to-face meetings and listening sessions.

We had an initial public hearing and a community survey in which we had 400 responses and over 1,500 comments to that survey.

We participated on the radio and party line at the end of the month, every month, every Wednesday, and then our end of once a month Wednesdays, and then we were before civic groups to receive feedback and hear from constituency that way.

The deliberations were centered around comparative research of our peer communities and then looking at background materials that were provided to us by the local government commission from MSU.

The issues that we heard from community and especially starting with issues coming from department heads, is that there was continuity of leadership concerns, meaning that as we go through an election cycle, the changeover with potential chief executives or some of yourselves led to some continuity challenges, especially with related to strategic planning and maybe unveiling initiatives that would take longer than a four-year cycle.

And so that was reflected by leadership within your departments.

Staffing and recruitment challenges always rose to the top, as you all know.

Staffing continues to be a problem in Butte Silver Bow at times, and then recruiting good people at a competitive salary.

Funding constraints, I think that is a line item in everybody's local government reflections that we all have funding constraints, so thinking through those.

And then tied to funding constraints, is that we can currently have some technology gaps, and there's increasing complexity of the services that we're providing.

So, how do we get over that technology hump and how do we provide increasingly more complex services with a limited budget?

Our survey results and listening sessions from public.

But rather I'd say maybe one person out of all of the people we have talked to have said that there's enough or there's um we need more commissioners.

Most people have said we'd we'd like to have fewer.

There is strong support for a city-county manager model.

Um recognizing the need for professionalization of that role and looking for experience and education background in that role.

There's uh frustration with the good old boy culture.

I think you know, since I've been in Butte for my whole entire life, I've always heard that.

So, not to be dismissive of that comment, but rather thinking about how are we creating a transparent government that is electing people and putting people into positions through a systemized method and not just um establishing cronyism.

And I I fully believe that we don't have cronyism in our in our city county government based on the um interviews that we did with our department heads.

But it is good for us to know that it's something our our community is concerned about.

And then finally, there's gaps in communication and transparency, specifically as we go to subcommittees, as we go to appointed boards, etc., there seems to be some concern that decisions are made behind closed doors, is the quoted word, and then maybe without all of you having enough time to deliberate on the issues that are coming before you.

Overall, the top one is how satisfied are you with the current Butte Silverbow government.

If you look at that pie, it's pretty well distributed between satisfied and unsatisfied if you break it out into that Likert scale.

So about 50% are in the dissatisfied, and again, about 50% or neutral are satisfied.

And then looking down at the 12 commissioners, that one is overwhelmingly 63% think that 12 commissioners are too many.

Too few there, we had, like I said, I think that slice of that is just one person in that survey result, and then unsure is 8% and 27% say about right.

In your opinion, is the current structure, current structure of an elected chief executive with both administrative and executive powers effective.

52% felt that that was not effective, with 30% feeling that it was, and there's a large representation of folks that were unsure.

And then looking at the professional city county manager hired by the council to manage day-to-day operations.

There's again good support for that, with 44% strongly supporting that and 24% somewhat supporting, and then the remainder of that pie is broken up between oppose and strongly oppose or neutral.

Our recommendations come from again all of those research pieces that we've done and the listening sessions and the survey.

So here are the recommendations.

First of all, we will retain charter form.

It's it's silly to not have our charter form.

It gives us the most control, it gives us the most flexibility, and it gives us the most accountability in allowing for local decision making.

So we we rejected moving away from charter form, I think, within our first meeting.

We like the idea of allowing the council to have a targeted improvements without changing the foundation of the charter structure.

Within the executive branch, we're recommending modernizing the government structure.

So looking at that modernizing being a city-county manager model that replaces the chief executive, and that city county manager would be accountable to the council of commissioners.

We felt that that particular model increased the accountability that the council has for looking through what is going on into internal in the operations of the city-county government, and that by the manager being an experienced person with leadership, they would bring forward that continuity and clear accountability to city county management county operations.

That city county manager would be hired on a basis of skills and background education and likely experience.

This recommendation, if adopted, would include the creation of an elected mayor at large to preside over the council.

And I'll get into those details a little bit later because there are some if-thens or flowchart, if you will, you know, depending on what the voters decide should these initiatives come forward.

The legislative branch recommendations is a restructuring of the council.

We looked at restructuring to four district commissioners, all positions become full-time and then improving our accountability, accessibility, the focus and decision making that you can do.

We deliberated quite a lot about how many commissioners were still in deliberation, still taking feedback on that.

We looked at our companion counties, we looked at our compound companion municipalities, and that four was kind of a conglomeration of those two models.

The full-time nature was looking at increasing transparency and increasing accessibility of the voter, so that you could be in community working with your constituency directly.

You could be participating in the many subcommittees that you already have established, and then many boards and different councils that are currently under the chief executives direction right now.

So you could be participating more widely in those meetings.

The focus and decision making capacity, that was something that we heard loud and cleared from you that at times there are things that come before you have not had time to think through, you have not had time to do background research, and the deliberations can be somewhat limited because you haven't had time to think through.

So we thought, you know, if we increase that time and availability, you could do deeper work.

Secondly, in recommendations, we were wanted to look at representation.

Folks in their survey were saying that they didn't feel necessarily that they their voices were being heard until things were brought to a head, if you will, in which they're bringing forward all of their friends and you know, lining up the hallways with people to testify against something or for something.

So we wanted to increase that representation and opportunities for participation in government.

And that includes establishing a clear framework for neighborhood councils.

So we would change a little bit of the wording in the charter to make sure that those neighborhood councils are established by all of you, and then provide for the structure through ordinance.

We didn't want to prescribe how that those neighborhood councils would be structured, rather, we wanted to leave that power with the council of commissioners to provide the structure and create that structure through ordinance and and likely through collaboration with folks that are interested in that.

We felt that this would improve engagement between residents and the local government.

And then final point, we wanted to address the rural representation through redistricting.

So if we move to four commissioners, we would have to have by necessity larger districts.

And that representation was something that was brought to us frequently as we were out in community and meeting with folks that live beyond the boundaries of the what we would call our city limits.

We recognize we don't have have city limits technically, but what we normally would call city limits.

Folks outside of that are thinking that they're not well represented in the current structure.

Other additions and changes.

We wanted to formalize the addition of the reclamation and environmental services department.

You already refer to Mr.

Hassler as director Hassler, so we wanted to formalize his department as its own standalone department separate from where it sits currently.

We felt that that was important given the nature of perpetuity, in perpetuity responsibility and superfund and managing the caps that we have in this county, and then recognizing that there's ongoing superfund issues that are likely to take as long as 30 years.

So having that set out and memorialized in the charter, we felt was important going forward.

Parks and recreation being separated as its own department in the charter was also a recommendation coming from community mostly.

Our community members felt that parks and recreation are critical to their well-being in this community.

They felt that parks and recreation was value adding, and it makes Butte an attractive place to live.

So formalizing that in the in the charter was also a recommendation.

We also recognize that both currently exist, they're just not raised to a level of importance to be recognized in the charter.

There's also some cleanup language that we have to do that I won't bore you with, but it's mostly in the end in Title 11, where we have to eliminate the things that were proposed by the last study commission and make sure that they've been certified by our county attorney, and then we can remove them, and there's some various small grammar changes.

They've done a lot of work there.

The challenges come from our language in the charter being a little bit vague in that it doesn't necessarily establish authority, and rather it leaves it kind of mismatched or if you will, combined like it was under the original combining of city and county governments.

And so there's room for interpretation, both within MCA as how we look at volunteer fire departments and how rural fire departments are set up under Montana Code annotated, and then secondly, under the administrative rules that DNRC has for volunteer fire departments, rural volunteer fire departments, and then the conflict with how we have them, like I said, combined into our municipal fire department currently.

So we've offered two options, and again, these are still for deliberation and debate within our commission, and we're seeking a lot of feedback from community right now about these options.

They are radically different from each other, and that is purposeful.

So the first option is to make the volunteer fire departments fully independent.

This was an option brought to us by the volunteer fire departments and their lawyer.

So they were looking to say, just remove us completely from the charter, eliminate all that language about us in the charter, and that would enable them to become autonomous.

They then fall under those uh rural fire department rules, and they then become independent entities with their own governance and funding.

And so as an independent entity, their um their commissions, their um fire, their fire councils would be their responsible parties who are overseeing them.

Um it would require new taxing districts, mutual aid agreements, and resolving equipment ownership and ownership of the buildings that they reside in.

So there's a lot of work to do on that that option that would happen should the voters um approve that option, there would be a lot of work for for this this group of commissioners and uh the existing fire departments to do.

Um under this option, the career fire department operates solely under the city county authority.

There's not a um blended authority there.

Under option two, it's rather to unify all services under city county authority and formally recognize that cleaning up any ambiguity in the language under the charter so that fire protection is formally declared a unified government function, and that the director of fire services has clear authority over the career and volunteer departments, and that we would also um put into charter a new volunteer fire coordinator who is selected by the volunteers to serve as a formal liaison between the um municipal department and the volunteer department.

Those volunteer budgets would be approved by the council of commissioners, and we would recommend that their volunteer budgets are pulled out and separated in the budget book so that everybody can see what is allocated to which firehouse and what their allocations look like.

That uh we felt that structure was important to increase transparency as right now it is in one big fire budget.

All right.

All right, what are our next steps?

As I stated, we are still in the listening phase.

Um tonight is part of that listening phase to come before all of you.

We appreciate again the invitation.

Uh tomorrow night we have our final open house at Butte Brewing at 5 30, and we you know highly recommend people come and visit with us and we were there to listen and hear feedback.

We still have the community survey, the second community survey that's out, that QR code will get you there.

It is also posted on the website for Butte Silver Bow, and people can continue to take that survey.

And then our public hearing will be on May 4th at 5 30 here in the council chambers, and the public hearing is where we will ask for proponents and opponents to any of the initiatives that we're bringing forward.

Following these processes, the commission will reseat.

We will take deliberations again and consider the feedback that we have received, any questions we have, any further research that might need to be conducted, and we'll take our final votes about what we will be uh forwarding to the ballot, at which time it will go to county attorney and Ruth and his team to uh get our language correct and get it certified through the state process.

And our our drop dead date is in July, so we have to have that final report out to community and to uh the state our state government in um early July.

So our process we're on the clock and we're we're moving quickly at this point.

All right, so any questions?

I know that's fast.

You have a huge document in front of you and over a year of work that was summarized.

Thank you, Miss Brandle.

I just have a quick question.

So after it goes to the vote in November, depending on how they end up, what's the implementation plan look like or who's in charge of that?

Yeah.

Commissioner Morgan, thank you for that question.

So the the elected study commission will seat with you, the council of commissioners for a period of time, and I believe it's 90 days.

Uh County Attorney Ann Ruth can probably correct me if that's not right.

So for 90 days, we help you crafting out that initial transition plan, and then it turns over to all of you to implement that implement that transition plan.

We do set um expected delivery by dates.

That's part of what's in the existing charter.

If you look at that in that Article 11, things have to be implemented by XYZ date based on what the implementation team comes up with.

Sure.

Great.

Thank you.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions?

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan, Raylan.

Thank you.

I um have watched a couple of these meetings.

I've attended one.

Firstly, thank you for having the council up.

Um just the work and time that you guys have put into this is incredibly beneficial to our community.

Um I do have a slew of questions.

Um, so maybe you can just indulge me.

Um, but I I saw it hit the news today that the the proposal as far as the four commissioners and you know the city manager, all of that.

What doesn't hit the news ever is what this will cost the taxpayers, and that's a huge thing in my mind.

What doesn't hit the news ever is what this will cost the taxpayers, and that's a huge thing in my mind, and I think in order for you know the public to be fully educated on whether they want this as a change, they need to know what it's going to cost them.

So my first question is do you have an idea of what it would cost?

I ran a couple numbers just simply based on uh a number of things.

Um, but with that question with what it cost, will the four full-time, if that's what ends up being proposed, are they planning on are is the salary going to be set at what other elected officials are making right now?

Because there's just a lot of numbers running through my head, so I'm just curious what that structure is gonna look like.

Ms.

Brandle.

Uh Chair Morgan, Commissioner Thatcher, thank you for that.

Um we are not authorized to set the budget.

That is is your duty and your responsibility as the elected council of commissioners.

So we do have estimates, we do have some idea based on the research or the background research we've done.

So I'll take it kind of one question at a time.

So focusing on the city manager position, the salary surveys that we have received from Mako and from the um League of Cities and Towns, the um the range on a a um city manager is on the low end at 165,000 a year, and on the high end in billings, that is the highest paid city manager at 212,000 per year.

Just for context, Helena just went through hiring a city manager.

Um that person was hired at 175,000.

And um there's been a question of like will we be able to recruit enough applicants, will be able to recruit people to do this job, and that that particular uh city manager opening had 84 applicants.

And so I think that we can say that yes, we would get enough applicants and that those salaries are competitive.

Um when we were doing our review with the um MSU law center, they said that Montana is an outlier in how long city managers stay with uh their positions because we tend to retain our city managers a little bit longer.

It's a similar structure to uh superintendent of schools to a school board, and if you're thinking about that structure.

Um right now our current elective chief executive makes 126,000 and his um chief of staff staff makes ninety thousand.

So if you have those salary buckets, you could pull from those.

Again, it's not my purview to make that decision, rather it is yours, and you would set that salary.

Um we also said that um these sort of things should be taken care of in ordinance, and you as the seat seated commission would make those ordinance uh recommendations of how you want to handle that position.

Okay, follow-up, Commissioner Thatcher.

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you for that.

Firstly, I had a question about the city manager as far as a stepping stone role because if we're going to talk about continuity that our leadership, department leadership is worried about, oftentimes, and I and thank you for making me aware, maybe it's not in Montana, but oftentimes city managers are seen as a stepping stone into further public you know positions, and so I think that that could be a that would be a fair concern.

Um but as far as back to the money though, so if even if if 175,000 is where we start for a city manager, that's their base salary, right?

That doesn't include their benefits on top of that.

I mean, I think that those and and I understand that it's our budget to set, but also if if if the study commission is going to put this on the ballot, I I in my opinion, it's the study commission's duty to say, hey, this is what this could cost you.

And as far as I was aware, I thought, and maybe somebody, maybe county attorney can indulge me on this, but I thought within the budget or within the ballot language, it had to include what the tax impact could be on an individual.

Um yes, that's a direct director to you, can I turn it on?

County attorney and Chairman Morgan, Commissioner Thatcher.

Yes, that has been discussed within the commission meetings that that is a possibility that it has to go on the ballot.

Okay, follow-up, Commissioner Thatcher.

Okay, so I guess beside that point, which I just uh I'm only asking these questions to maybe get it out to the public to also ask these questions themselves.

You know, I I think it's important that we recognize that this could have a decent sized tax impact on people.

And I'm not just saying this for job security.

This is like fair concerns that people are asking me that I don't have the answers to.

The next couple things though.

So if four commissioners are elected at large, which and they come from different backgrounds, which I as we all do up here, which I fully agree with, who's to say we are qualified to hire a city manager.

Miss Brandle.

Chair Morgan, uh, Commissioner Thatcher.

So um, first of all, the recommendation is that they're elected through districts, so they're not at large.

There would be one at large mayor if the city county manager were voted on by the constituency.

Um it's the same process that you currently have in regards to how do you, you know, do how does the chief executive hire directors that are working for the um city government?

So you you're entrusted, you have public trust to do that job.

Um I think you would probably I'm just conjecturing at this point, but I think you would probably look to your neighboring communities to see what their job descriptions look like, what the qualifications look like, and then you would do your interview process and it would need to be robust.

And I think that you're obviously qualified if elected, and you're empowered by your constituency to do so.

Last question, last one.

Follow up, Commissioner Thatcher.

Okay, thank you for that answer.

And I think the last one that at least has come to me that that I I've got a question on is you had talked about you compared um commission structures from our county to counties around Montana.

But in all actuality, Annacona Deer Lodge is the only consolidated other consolidated government in the state of Montana.

They have five commissioners, and we have almost four times the population of them.

So is there any concern that we would be underrepresenting more than the study is already indicated we are Miss Brandle?

Chair Morgan, um, Commissioner Thatcher, you know, it's to be considered to look at, you know, how what does representation need to look like?

Um our thinking as we're reviewing things again, we're looking at those structures and understanding that we are a hybrid, looking at counties that are much larger than ours and that have you know greater populations than ours have three commissioners, and then there's municipal um commissions that are working that maybe have also three commissioners.

So combining, you know, looks like six or something to that end.

So we felt that four plus a manager at five was representative, and um it meets the needs.

You know, it's definitely things to consider, um, it's definitely things to think about.

And back to that fiduciary question, um, you know, county attorney Enruth, I I don't recall that conversation being re card re um required on the ballot, so we'll have to definitely bring that back in terms of the language if there is a need for a fiscal note, but I I don't recall that conversation.

So um, and they will say the the salaries for individual commissioners vary across the state, and there's differences between county commissioners and differences between municipal or city commissioners.

And so that variance is you know from the low end of full time at $60,000 to the high end of about $80,000 for um, I think it's Yellowstone County that sits at 80.

Great.

Is there any other questions?

I would ask a question, Miss Brandle, if if I can.

So there hasn't been any discussion about breaking up the city-county consolidation, right?

I just want to make sure that that's Chair Morgan.

Thank you for that.

No, um, there was some uh constituency who would said, you know, maybe we should just unconsolidate, and that was coming out of our rural districts, and the commission just out of hand rejected that idea.

Um mostly we felt that their concerns could be uh addressed to representation and redistricting and not, you know, it looked silly to to unwind the consolidation.

Sure.

And then just a couple of questions regarding the fire department.

So the f the first option where the volunteers would be taken completely out of the charter, would they then assume their current fire districts that they currently have, and then would the taxes from within that fire district go to fund that particular fire department?

And so would that mean that the career fire department would not roll into those outlying departments or outlying districts?

I just I'm trying to figure that out.

Yeah, Commissioner Morgan, if I may, I would like to redirect this question to County Attorney Ann Ruth.

Oh, county attorney in Ruth.

Chairman Morgan, Commissioners, if the volunteer it is uh mine and my office's opinion that if the volunteer fire districts are removed from the charter, they then fall back under Montana statute.

The statute specifically states that they are allowed to request special levies for their funding.

It does not state that they can piggyback off of the county's funding.

So our fire district was passed by its own levy, we have to follow the language in the levy for which it was passed for.

You know, that's what we have to go with.

So it is our opinion that if they are removed, um, they could request a special tax to fund their districts.

The next question then becomes is that double taxation?

Uh we've looked at the case law, and it is my opinion that it is not double taxation because they do offer different services.

Um where volunteer firefighters don't have uh the same qualifications uh as the career firefighters with regards to um entering occupied structures and things like that.

They do offer you know different services, particularly volunteers with wildland firefighting.

So uh it would not be double taxation, but they would still be able to request their special levies.

So just a follow-up question on that.

So, would the property owner be able to designate if they want the volunt to pay into the volunteer fund or just pay into the city fund, I guess, to have their property protected, or is it an all in?

That's that's the question that would probably be have to be asked, excuse me, Chairman Morgan.

Uh, commissioners, that's the big question is whether or not uh the community would vote to be have an additional tax for the volunteers.

So then this next question becomes is do they get to fall back on their original levies that were there in place prior to consolidation?

Sure.

Um, and those are all questions for a judge.

There's no case law, there's nothing on it.

But the law specifically states that the trustees are allowed to levy special taxes.

Um it is our opinion that they would be, if removed from the charter, allowed to present those special levies to the constituents in their districts, and then those constituents would vote on it.

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Follow up or other questions.

Commissioner Fisher.

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Uh, I'd like to thank you, Ray Lynn, for the work you've done and uh all your committee.

Um, it appears to me by the charts and everything in here that you've listened to the public, and that seems to be one of the things that the public was complaining about is you know, we don't listen.

And apparently the study commission listened, and the numbers show what the committee was studying and what they were doing.

So I'd just like to thank you all for your hard work and uh your professionalism.

I mean, what you just showed to us here.

I mean, whether you're uh for or against certain things in it or not, I mean it's a great study, it's what it's about, it's a study, and uh I think it's something that still needs a little bit of work, but I I just can't say enough about how you guys did and uh what the future may hold, whether it be uh consistent with what we have now or something in the future.

But I'm just totally impressed with your work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Fisher.

Uh Commissioner O'Neill, then Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Uh, thank you, Reland.

Thank you to all the people on the on the board, appreciate your hard work.

Um thinking all the people on the board hit all the right people, maybe except Dan Denny, that'd be the only one that I'd be concerned with.

But uh going forward, what I just really hope for the voters is that they're educated on what we're what's gonna happen.

Um, particularly the fire, the option one, option two.

To me, there's really the education piece on that on the background, it's it's really not out there.

So if you're if it's voted one way and it's and you're not educated on it, then it's gonna be I I feel like there could be a big backlash on that.

Um so on on both sides for for the community.

Um, I hope the options set out there for what's best for Butte Silver Bowen, not what's best for the volunteer firemen's, not what's best for the paid guys.

What is best for our protection of if my house starts on fire and what makes sense, like um even the the levies of whatever the the uh the firemen guys can levy, you know, that that really needs to be stated out where if it's voted in the fall and then it gets pushed back on the commission, that's um I mean that seems really interesting how that would lay out.

Uh it seems like it would be a bigger mess, right?

So I hope that like so the survey, the survey was great, very but to me, and be honest with you guys, there wasn't that much information in there to decide.

It was like, well, you want three or four?

Okay, let's have four.

Sounds good.

But what do I get for four?

Do I pay five hundred thousand for four commissioners?

Do I get this?

I I want to know that too for whatever um just for um so on and so forth.

I could blab on, but anyway, I definitely appreciate hard work, but I just hope to God by November that the um education to our voters abuse over both, they know what the heck they're voting for because that's how it, you know, thank you very much.

Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Ray Lynn and your your crew, Dan Danny, Mary McCormick, uh for getting your name, uh Shauna Adams and uh Chad Silk, you guys have done an incredible job.

You guys have put the unbelievable amount of hours into this, you put a lot of dedication to people elected, uh couldn't elected a better group.

And you have done a really really good job.

And uh thank you for the you guys, there's other ones who aren't able to be here tonight, but um all we can say is thanks.

your your crew Dan Danny Mary McCormick for getting your name uh Shauna Adams and uh Chad Silk you guys have done an incredible job you guys have put an unbelievable amount of hours into this you put a lot of dedication the people elected uh couldn't elect at a better group and you have done a really really good job and uh thank you for the you guys there's other ones who aren't able to be here tonight but um all we can say is thanks you guys are sure looking to see the end of the tunnel for all the hours you put into it I guess one of the questions I want to ask you is when this was brought to the council whether we wanted to do this or not put it on the ballot for the people to vote to have a study commission the same questions came up was how many members do we want and there was people on the council wanted to go four people and we fought hard to get nine I guess my question to all of you is could you done as good a job on this study with four people as you have done with nine Ms.

Brandle Commissioner Morgan Commissioner Callahan I I don't know I I'll just say I don't know.

You know we definitely had a lot of work um we did a lot of subcommittee work we shared the burden you know this report was was shared by several people but I I can't answer that question not having been in this situation.

And then to to go back to Mr.

O'Neill if I may Mr.

Morgan I agree that voter education is important and in our intentions is to help provide some of that education materials related to you know the if-then situations we have to do some work with county attorney and Ruth our commission needs to do further deliberation we don't know exactly which ones we're bringing forward to ballot yet those are yet to be decided these are our our recommendations at this point um so we're still seeking that feedback once those are finished and we're bringing them to ballot then I agree with you that we have a responsibility to include the uh if then scenarios and you know looking at budget like I said we don't have authority to say that budget piece but we could imagine that piece okay commissioner mankins um thank you um chair morgan and thank you um miss randall and your whole committee I mean outstanding work that you're you're doing here um just a couple questions it just piggy off piggyback on what you just said here who decides what is brought to the ballot I mean I think the voters would want to know that you talk about you know all these different things but we don't know exactly which what would be the deciding factor well we will go through finish our public process and that public excuse me commission uh chair morgan commissioner mankins we'll finish that public process uh we'll have our public hearing and I hope that we'll have a line out the door where we'll have our opponents and proponents which will help us make that decision right like if we had uh a whole city of opponents to reducing the commission then that's not something we would do right we're listening to community and so after that process we will do our deliberations and the commission the study commission will vote on which issues move to ballot and it's possible that we could reject some or we could amend or change the the way that we are thinking about them currently follow up couple.

So thank you for that and I guess we'll just see I mean um I don't think always the loudest voice because not everybody can get up here so I really want you to take that in consideration through my two terms here it seems like if you pack the house with something but it just isn't always right for the community so uh that's one thing but on another thing um I think everybody has hit on that we run on uh the premise to the people out in this audience and everyone else that we are fiscally responsible we have to be fiscally responsible with taxes and with these costs of what you're saying then that's not being fiscally responsible in our time in our day here where taxes go up everybody's looking for another different way to be taxed we walked around just with um all of us that went to the data center and all of us are dealing with the data center and different things and if taxes are going to go up and if our cost of this is going to go up and inflation is going to go up and so I I don't know right now if we're really thinking about that and I think that's one of the big things that my constituents are very concerned about.

So I really think that we have to go back to what Mrs Thatcher was saying or Mr Callahan or Mr O'Neill we have to really delve into this and see what those numbers really are.

I can't afford any more it's just the same thing I live in a house with trying to raise two boys um it's it's a tough time right now and the more that you're gonna put on us and I think Mr.

Callahan hit it right on the head could you have done better with just four I I mean you say you can't answer that but um the voters are you know the people in your study commission are saying with us that we don't have enough time with 12 of us to go around and Mrs.

Thatcher hit on that.

I mean those are very um I hopefully that those are things that you're really weighing a little bit heavier than some so thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Um, and thank you, Rillian and Committee for for every everything you guys have done.

I think that the amount of time, the study, the the uh you know the amount of work that you put in is tremendous.

I I do want to put to make a couple comments.

It's it's important to to recognize that this is a city-county form of government that and so the role even as a city manager would be different.

And so in the comparisons, it's really hard.

So when you look at a city manager, when you talk about a city manager, almost all city manager form of governments have an assistant city manager in every one of the cities in Montana.

So you'd have a city manager and assistance manager.

Those city managers are only governing cities.

So even in the I would debate when you said the highest city manager is 220, Bozeman is 280, and Belgrade is 235,000.

I think I sent those off to the current ones, and they have assistancy managers that are well over those 200 ranges as well.

So uh those those figures aren't really accurate, but the those are realistic, butte has a lot of other complexities that will make these salaries challenging.

And I'm not saying this because I have no intention of can continue, and I think city manager could be could be a possibility.

I think that there's a lot of there's a lot of um reasons and rationale behind a city manager or a manager form of government here because there are complexities about having somebody that that has that that behind it, but the challenges that they have.

You have superfund issues that other communities don't have.

We have a jail here, a city does not have a jail, counties have jails.

Um county commissioners have administrative duties in our form of government, legisl our council members do not have administrative duties.

So that's as we're bringing these together, that's where you these these things are are different.

So there's a lot of different complexities of what you do.

So when you're bringing full-time commissioners in, you're bringing commissioners in.

So you got to talk about what it what the roles will be.

And I understand when you say you have more to do, but it'll be a challenging role to bring these all together.

And so that's there's a lot to think about as you try to meld this together, much like they did when they created the city-county form of government.

And I think these are the questions that still need to be asked when we bring this together.

And I'm not I'm not at all uh debating what the work that you guys have done because you've done a lot of uh a lot of great work, but there's there's a lot of challenge to this and to um the form of government that Butte has, there's no perfect form of government.

When there's a lot of things when they say good old boy system, all you have to do is pull up other city commission meetings anywhere in the state of Montana, and the same things are said there, the same complexities, they have those things as well.

So I that they have the same challenges, and I I know um, but I just want to people to understand it it's not an easy process to change a form of government.

Um, and so I'm not against the change, but it's not just uh, you know, let's let's create four new positions and and create a manager form of government.

That I don't think it's as easy as just saying we can get somebody for 170,000 dollars.

The complexity of this role as a city manager, I think you'd have a challenge to do that because um Butte's a little different.

We have uh uh a lot we have more unions in in Butte, Montana than then the state of Montana has, and that that adds complexities to it as well.

And so um, and that's a good thing.

That's who we are in Butte.

But that's another administrative challenge that most other communities don't have as well.

And so um I think that uh there's a lot of things to be thought of as as we move forward with how the voters look at at this form of government.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Um Ms.

Brandle, I will say what everybody else has said.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all the members of the committee um for doing what you do.

And and Commissioner Callahan is right.

We had you all probably know if you were considering running for the study commission.

Um we had a long discussion about how many people to put on that committee, and I'm really grateful that we had such a large number because I think we do have a really diverse view of how things go, and I think each individual person that's on that committee brings uh an individual strength, and sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

And sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

I think that's a beautiful thing about it.

I do have a few questions.

Fisher was here.

Dan Clark came and he comes every about every two years and does training with with the commissioners on government functions, forms of government, things like that.

And I'm just going to go with like pure pure, like let's assume everything goes wonderfully.

And it seems to me that he said an implementation can be six to eight to ten years before everything is fully implemented.

Because it's not like flipping a switch.

They are so good.

Did he give you guys an estimate like that?

Did he say, you know, boy, you better be prepared because it could be, you know, from here to here.

Miss Brandle.

Chair Morgan, Commissioner Shea, we did have those conversations in our training at the very beginning.

And as we understand it, it could take, it depends on all the things that we you know would be voted on, but that transition, if we were to change the structure of the council could take up to 2030 based on current terms and what we understand from our county attorney.

Um there is some nuance and some questions in there, like the um, you know, currently half of you are up for election this November, and then the next um half that would come up in 2028.

There could be some changes with regards to a two-year term or something in order to be able to um effect the changes that would be coming forward by the voters.

Of course, as many of you have stated with the complexities of um how we govern, there's a lot of ordinance creation that needs to happen, and I would see that taking quite a long process depending on what what's coming before you follow Commissioner Shea.

Um thank you, Commissioner Morgan.

Um thank you for that answer, Ms.

Brandle.

Um another thing that Mr.

Clark talked to us about was the um kind of the lack of production during that time and how what is happened, you know, that the government churns very slow, the government's not designed to move fast, it's designed to move fairly.

So he did talk to us about how in that time period he kind of things would likely slow down.

Um I'm sure you guys, you guys probably talked about that, and um you don't really need to speak to that.

Um I just kind of wanted to bring that up.

Um I'm wondering if I love the public outreach that you guys have done.

It's been just top-notch.

I love it.

Um, I'm wondering if you get have a feel for kind of what the baseline is for people with their understanding of how the government works, opposed opposed to how they think it should work.

And I'm talking about currently.

Did you get a baseline feel for any of that?

Miss Brandle.

Chair Morgan, uh, Commissioner Shea, uh follow-up question back.

So are you asking, do they understand how it's structured and functions, or is that the question?

Okay.

Um, you know, I might I might um have to take that back to consider a little bit because I think that mostly people that have been providing comment to us do understand how things work and how the structure and function is set up.

But I would feel um ill-advised to say, yes, that is absolutely true because I, you know, I haven't dug into their survey responses or spoken to each person we've talked to.

But my impression is that they understand how things work.

Uh follow up Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you for that.

And you what was our 400 survey respondents, so about one percent of the public.

Um have you talked about I I'm sure you have so tell me what your ideas are for increasing public participation, whether it be this form of government or a different form of government, because I can't tell you how many times I look out here, and all I see is a couple of department directors, um, unless an issue comes up that really um that's really powerful for a specific person or or someone, you know, or they want to buy a piece of public property.

Um, have you guys had any idea?

Do you have any ideas?

Would you please share them?

Absolutely.

Ms.

Brandle.

Um, Chair Morgan, can Commissioner Shea, we share your concerns at times that it is an echo chamber in here as well when we're meeting.

Um, what has worked for us, and that I think could work, you know.

I've noticed that you guys on the website now have an opportunity for people to provide possible agenda items to your agenda.

I mean I think that's brilliant that you know the public can engage with you directly through that that website means.

Um also what's worked for us really well is going to ground, like going to the the civic groups, going to where people are, you know, hosting our our uh meetings outside of these chambers has been very effective.

You know, we've we've been in Ramsey, we've been in Melrose, we've been in Divide, where we're where the people are, and I think that's important to do.

Um, and one of the reasons that we are thinking about adding time that you guys could have to do that work.

You know, we recognize that everybody seated is likely a full-time um employee of somewhere else.

And so, how do you get out to constituency and and when they're um available, right?

It's it's almost impossible.

So, you know, that's one way I think uh and you know, of course I'll bring it back to and think about it a little bit more in terms of what we could or could not do.

Mr.

Dennehy has a comment.

Long time, Mr.

Denny.

Yes, how are you doing, everyone?

Um this chair.

Oh push the button and sorry, Mr.

Chairman, members of the council, Commissioner Shay.

I think one of the things that you have dealt with in the past was the whole idea of neighborhood councils, and that went to the county attorney for a decision or a county attorney opinion, and we heard about that several times, probably about nine months of that.

But in the bottom of that, the foundation of that is where people come together as neighbors and communities.

Now, what we did is change the language very little in the charter.

It says you have the right and duties to appoint neighborhood councils.

But on top of that, we gave you the right to put up parameters, policies and procedures on what a neighborhood council is.

We would consider Melrose a neighborhood council if they adhere to the policies and procedures that you set up.

We would consider Ramsey a neighborhood council if you set up if they meet the policies and procedures that you set forth.

We don't want any Tom Dick and Harry to come up and say, hey, we're a neighborhood council.

Why?

Well, because me, John, Tom, Dick, don't like the way our streets are being paved.

You will set up how it is applied.

You will set up what the districts are of neighborhood councils.

You will set up what the governing structure of that organization is, and with that neighborhood council, it brings that that neighborhood to you to understand what is bothering them or solutions to their problems.

And just on a another thing, I I heard from uh Chief Executive Galgar and some of the members that this is a challenge.

It was a challenge in 1976 when we combined county and city together.

No one thought that was going to happen.

No one thought that we can bring so diverse people together to run this government.

And that's why there's 12 of you, right?

Because there were three county commissioners and nine city eldermen.

And guess what the number is?

Twelve.

You know, that has been since 1978.

Remember in 2016, we didn't have a count a study commission.

They decided everything's good.

Well, now we got 12, 20 years of that.

So the voters will decide with great information, Commissioner Thatcher.

We have to get better information.

It doesn't mean doesn't mean that we have to have a fiscal note saying what this cost.

But depends on what number it is for the council, whether it's four, whether it's one mayor, and that'll change too if the chief executive vote for chief executive and not a city manager.

There won't be a mayor for the council of commissioners.

There'll be five districts, and you will in internal vote who the chair is going to be, like you do now.

So we up the districts for larger participation or larger numbers.

And Commissioner Calhan has been at every one of the uh meetings that we have in the rural area, and they believe that there isn't representation because Commissioner Callan is only one.

But if you have a larger district, that means not only there is going to be a rule commissioner, but you'll also have part of that as a city county commissioner.

So you have both things.

So we are asking the voters of this community, we have to give them recommendations.

We have to have the language of the ballot clear and county attorney will be helping us regarding that language.

Because it has to be specific.

So please read the recommendations.

They're preliminary.

We are going to change that.

We've heard from six, we heard from twelve, we heard maybe three paid commissioners, just like the county governments across the states.

So that is still a work in order.

But please, there's a challenge, but we always rise to the challenge.

We rise to that challenge.

If the voters in this community think that everything's great and we like 12 and we like this co uh city manager or we like the chief executive, they're not going to change it.

But we have to move forward to see whether or not the voters have that opportunity.

So I hope I hope you understand that that was our objectives are not to take a side on a city manager or or a uh chief executive.

Our job was to give the people of this community a choice.

And whether or not they want to structure the change, that's up to them.

If they don't, they'll vote not for that.

So I think the challenge is there, but we are always a community of meeting that challenge.

So that's kind of where we are.

I couldn't be happier with the nine or eight separate people that are sitting around here.

I mean, I didn't think we get through one meeting without a fist fight, but you know, they told me to get out, and they told me to get back in, and okay, we're sorry, you're you know, you're not that I'm just kidding.

But great, it was a great working relationship.

Um Chairman Brandle and my colleagues have done a wonderful job, and thank you for the acknowledgement.

We appreciate that, but it's a challenge, and we don't back down from challenge, and the voters will make the right decision, I think.

So thank you very much for your comments tonight.

Mr.

Denehy, before you leave, on on a follow-up question with the community councils, just so I get a better understanding of what the committee might be envisioning here.

So when you say this the town of Ramsey would be considered a community council, how would they interact with the council different than what they would today?

I guess what does that look like?

I think right now you don't have uh Mr.

Chairman of the Council right now you don't have specific guidelines for community councils.

We have one very involved community council, it's the Greenlee School, Grady Crater, Greeley, whatever it is, the Greeley School Community Council.

And I don't even they have what their organization looks like, but I don't think you have approved that or have looked at that or have an application.

How that revolves, you will set up that.

And if they make the effort to jump through those procedures in politics, excuse me, policies and procedures, sorry, I'm sticking something else.

Um they will have that given to you.

And you can call them up when there's an issue and listen to them as a member of the community, not as four or five different people who have complaints, they as a community.

I think they have that that sort of by you completing that policy as a procedure, you give them the authority to be here and to talk to you because you set it up, and they m and they adhere to what you set up.

And it's uh for me, I think that's that's being accountable to the citizens of this community.

Okay.

Can I let me go to Commissioner Thatcher?

And then I'll come back to you.

Okay.

Thank you, uh, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Denehy.

This could be a question for you or Ms.

Brandle.

It was one last question that I had written down, but is there is the structure going to align in the sense where two would be elected two years and two would be elected in the following two years?

Because again, if we're talking about continuity, we could have none.

And so we could have a brand new four-member council, a new chief executive, a brand new city mayor or city manager.

It could all be different.

And so what assurances do the public have that everybody knows how the government runs effectively and how how's that going to be structured?

Mr.

Denny.

Mr.

Chair, Commissioner Thatcher.

I think Article 11 of the Charter is a transitional sort of function.

And I think that 90 days, the study commission has to stay involved.

And I would imagine that this current council will be part of that transition planning team along with the county attorney.

But I think if you read the charter, at least the amended charter, we don't change the language on how elections were done.

There'll be staggered terms for each commissioner.

I don't think that has changed, but the transition is the important part, and that's that's a work in progress.

Commissioner Shea, follow-up.

Thank you.

Um I I want to just kind of go back to the neighborhood councils, because they're, as you know, as you said, they're current they're already in our charter with kind of no former function.

Um and I've always been really intrigued by the idea of those, and I think that having a a group of people like that as kind of liaisons between the public and the commission is intriguing, I'll say.

Um I I have had people when it's come up before, because it comes up, um, you know, there's a uh our red band Rob very engaged citizen.

I really appreciate his engagement.

Um, he he talks about uh putting these in place.

They've done a really great job about putting them in place.

When that was those conversations were because they they always kind of bubble up and cycle through.

Um the conversation that I had with one person in my district was why would we want to add it?

They saw that it as another layer of government.

And and certainly if the council or who whomever sits here is appointing those.

Um I I don't know how I feel about that.

I guess I just want to talk through my feelings about right now about it.

But did you guys get any feedback like that that pe people thought it was another layer of government?

And you know I guess just is if you could just answer that, and then I have another follow-up after that.

Mr.

Denny.

Mr.

Chair, members council, Commissioner Shea.

Um there is a wide range of communications there.

There was the staunch we need neighborhood councils at any cost.

We already have set that up.

Council commissioners didn't listen to us.

This has happened 16 years ago.

It is an ordinance that no one's paying attention to, and we don't like it.

That's one side.

The other side is there's not a big groundswell from any people that we heard that we want neighborhood councils.

No one came up and said, Yeah.

But on our life, listening to folks, we didn't think having neighborhood council was a really bad idea.

If the council of commissioners set priameters on what that looks like.

So if you're taking the time to have an application into the council saying you want to set up a neighborhood council, if you're taking the time of delineating what those boundaries in the neighborhood are, if you're taking the time to give you a leadership structure of who's on the leadership roles and who's on that neighborhood council leadership-wise, organizational-wise, then you are moving to the structure that whatever the council creates.

So there is that opportunity that you be become involved in the neighborhood council that you set up why these are important.

We thought that was a really good idea with a without saying the greatest idea, let's let everybody join a neighborhood council.

I think having parameters that this council maintains is a very good idea.

I would agree.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna completely switch gears here for a second uh and go back to the wage question.

Um I see the director worm is in the audience.

I don't really want to put you on the spot.

Um, but would it be possible for you to just give me a rough idea of what the um multiplier is on a raw wage for a fully loaded labor with all the fringe included?

Um but would it be possible for you to just give me a rough idea of what the um multiplier is on a raw wage for a fully loaded labor with all the fringe included here miss brandle you look like you have to yeah chair gore uh chair morgan and commissioner shay it's roughly 50 percent it's usually time and a half when you take your wages and then you add those benefits it's about 50 percent is that the nature of the question they're asking about what raw wage yeah so you would think it you know to make our math simple if it was a hundred thousand dollar wage you would be paying about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars that's on average across you know um taxes insurance workers comp etc but it could be different in butte silver bow county but that's based on outside director worm miss worms are I'm sorry to put you on the spot you could have got back to me with both of you with that you're good thanks for the question um our elected officials are right around 92000 right now and after speaking with a director um hassler it's about 35 percent um benefits on top of that thank you commissioner callahan thank you chairman morgan I just want to comment on the Dan Clark thing you know he's come before us numerous times about five six years ago we had a group of citizens came to us and said the only way you can change a form of government is you get enough petitions to put it on the ballot and it was during COVID they didn't have time to get then so they came to us to see if we would vote to put have it put on the ballot and Dan Clark came and did a presentation on what it would take and I believe he said it would be four to six years because it takes two years which we will be in by time we elect these this group will be into this two years already and then the people that are elected in that election have to term out so most people will be elected for a four year term so those people will have to term out the city manager if it got passed that would probably start in two years because our chief executive's term would be up in two years if that's the way it went if not then it it would just stay the same status quo and maybe they change the council but and I think Ray Lynn answered the question about the council four of them would be in for four years and then some of us would term out in two years and they would probably add another two year you'd run for another two years and then it would be a changeover and anybody up here could run for one of those positions so whether somebody up here got the job they would already have knowledge or maybe somebody that understands government would learn would win but I think like you said probably 2030 it should be a complete transition but if the uh city manager got voted in I think that would happen in two years after your term up is that miss is right two and a half years I guess I'm talking yeah right so it would be a it would be a split deal to start with the before the uh councilman would change the city manager would be elected in or appointed before is the way I understood and he's been to us numerous times I mean Mr.

Clark he came to you guys and he's he's as sharp as there is on county and city governments any any question you have he can answer it.

The best thing about this is we don't have to have that answer tonight.

Is there any other questions?

Commissioner Shea I just want to thank Dan for for the timeline because I truly couldn't remember what he said because it was it was so long ago that we that he was here so thanks.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments as much as my name comes up on being here when things like this change I'm getting a little long in the tooth sitting up here.

Is there anything on else on the question?

Well Ms.

Brandle can't thank you enough and your your committee for doing what you guys do I know that's really the the most unpaid job but you guys have done an awesome job of really you know making the process more formalized from what I ever remember of it being and and hats off to you and your committee for sure.

You know I appreciate your comments tonight too and we will take back the feedback that we received tonight and especially in incessing out those salaries you know some of that information is coming direct out of the newspaper when they hired these these folks and then based on the salary surveys that we had from Mako and so it sounds like things have changed so we will do our investigation we'll keep working and then obviously I need to learn about benefits with uh the county um here in regards to our elected officials so we appreciate your time and we appreciate your efforts and and I recognize how long we have been at the microphone so thank you for your your that's great thank you.

Beth Worm Human Resources Director requesting council of commissioners' permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 2026.

Committee to the whole meeting regarding the renewal of Silverbow self-funded health insurance plan for July 1, 2026 through June 30th, 2027 plan year.

Director Worm.

Um Thank you, Commissioners.

Uh, for the record, my name is Beth Worm, HR Director for Butte Silver Bow.

We are handing out the presentation.

Um I never know how it's gonna look up here, so we figured having a handout would be helpful as well.

Um we also appreciate your time um today.

We'll try to make it short.

Um we'll walk through the renewal rates and highlight a few key updates on the plan.

Um so our goal is to offer a health plan that stays affordable while maintaining sustainability for the plan and also meets the needs of our employees and their families.

Um so to start, I'll give a quick overview of how the plan is currently performing.

Um so overall the plan remains stable.

However, like many health insurance plans, we're continuing to feel pressure from large claims and rising health care costs.

Um right now, seven high-cost claimant accounts for 38% of total claims.

Um our loss ratio is slightly higher than this time last year, reflecting an increased demand and broader cost trends.

Um we are actively managing those through cost containment efforts, including uh three a new 340B program, which we'll touch on shortly, um, and ongoing work with our broker.

Um the trends, especially the larger claims and the higher loss ratio are reflected in our stop loss and plan renewal rates.

Um stop loss insurance protects our plan from very large claims and continues to be a major cost driver.

Um when our broker originally went to market, um, rates came back um higher than we had hoped.

Um, however, we were able to work with um HMIG, our current carrier to match competitive pricing.

So we're able to remain with our current carrier for stop loss coverage.

Um, but even with that negotiation process, we're looking around a 14.2% increase in stop loss premiums.

Um we're continuing to look at ways to manage and offset costs whenever possible.

Um, and for context, um market increases this year are running around 15 to 20 percent for fully insured plans and 15 uh to 40 percent increases for stop loss.

Um high cost prescriptions are another major cost driver for our plan.

Um, and unlike stop loss, we do have um some tools to help manage these costs.

One of those is the 340B program.

Um, this was recently implemented with our um self-funded plan.

This is a federal program that allows certain providers to purchase medications at a significantly reduced price, and then those savings can be passed on to the plan.

So this mainly impacts high cost specialty medications.

Um so it's a small percentage of people that this affects, however, um those costs are fairly significant.

Um we've implemented this um specialty prescription through a designated pharmacy, and right now it's generating about 7,000 per month in savings.

Um enrollment in the plan remains stable with 165 employees currently enrolled, only 27 eligible employees decline coverage with most of their coverage decline reasons being they are covered under a spouse's plan.

Um we were or are seeing a shift towards higher deductible plans, especially uh plan three.

Um last year we adjusted the employee only tier on plan three to be largely employer covered, um and that led an increase to enrollment in that tier.

Um so with that context, we can uh move into renewal rates for the upcoming year.

Um the traditional plan um plan one um has seen the highest utilization and has been operating in a deficit, um, which puts pressure on the overall plan.

Um so we went into renewal knowing changes were needed for this plan.

Um so the deductible will be increasing from a thousand dollars to fifteen hundred and three thousand dollars along with a 15% increase to total cost.

Um plan two has been performing well and is generally covering its cost.

Um there is a required adjustment to the deductible to stay aligned with IRS guidelines, so the deductible will increase to um 3,400 um along with a 10% increase to the total plan.

Um three continues to perform well.

Um this is our most stable and cost-effective option.

There is no structural changes to this plan, and it will see a 5% increase to total cost.

So what we're seeing is a clear pattern.

Higher deductible plans are performing better.

Well, the traditional plan continues to drive a large share of costs.

As we approach the renewal, we had to take all of this into account.

And because it is a self-funded plan, where it really belongs to all of us that are on the plan.

So our focus is keeping it balanced, sustainable, and working well for employees over the long term.

So I will pass it on to Emily to discuss the structure of the plans.

Thanks, Beth.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan and members of council for the record.

My name is Emily Joan Art.

I am currently the HR generalist for Butte Silver Bow.

And over the last two years, I have been the benefit specialist, educating employees on what benefits are offered to them and administering those benefits.

So like Beth said, some of the numbers have changed, and we did go out through the renewal process, and we're able to secure Blue Cross Blue Shield as our third party administrator again this year, which will be nice for both members and for us on the administrative side because it can be a challenge when we switch carriers like that.

So it is nice that employees will still be able to utilize those same services that they've been known that they've been using throughout this last plan year.

Um so they will continue to you be our TPA for medical, dental, and vision, and there will be no administrative or structural changes to that.

The only changes that we really are gonna see is this change in the deductible.

So, like Beth said, the traditional plan has kind of been taking a hit over the past couple years here, and we hadn't looked at changing the deductible for many years.

Um, and so with the rising costs of health insurance and um health care costs, we looked at increasing that traditional health plan from a thousand dollar deductible to now a $1,500 deductible for an individual, and from $2,000 for a family to now $3,000 for a family.

Um nothing else is changing with the plan as far as that goes.

Um after deductibles are met, the plan will still pick up that 70% of co-insurance, and the employee or the member will still be responsible for the 30%.

Um they will still continue to have those maximum out-of-pocket costs.

So for an individual, the maximum amount of out-of-pocket cost that they could see on the traditional plan is $3,000 and $6,000 for a family.

Um, as you can see here, there is co-pays associated with the traditional plan for office visits and primary care and urgent care visits.

Um then on the plan two, the high deductible, middle high deductible plan, like best said, there we did have to adjust that due to IRS um guidelines.

So that is moving from 3300 to 3400 this year for an individual, and then the family deductible will move up to 6,800 this year.

Um with the high deductible plans, once you meet your deductible, the plan pays for everything else at 100%.

So nothing is changing that way.

Um, and again, those are something that we don't have any control over.

You know, eventually those numbers might meet each other at some point.

This 3,400 and our $5,000 plan, but we're not quite there yet.

So the $5,000 plan will stay the same way that it has with a $5,000 individual deductible, 10,000 family deductible, and a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family.

The nice thing with all of these plans is that preventative screenings are um covered at 100%.

Um and then if you look at diagnostic imaging and labor laboratory testing, that all applies to your deductible.

So nothing major changing there, just slightly different numbers on that traditional and middle plan deductible.

But the plan will be covered the same way.

Moving on, we will look at some of the prescription benefits.

So this slide just lays out what different what each of the plan covers as far as pharmaceutical costs go.

So the two high deductible plans, you are subject to meeting your deductible before your medications will be covered.

However, working with Blue Cross Blue Shield, they've put together a preventative drug list program that has a lot of generic medications and a lot of medications that employees could be on that are covered at 100%.

So that's the main thing we like to do when we're doing onboarding with employees and educate employees about which plan to choose, is making sure that they know that there is a difference on what they could pay for pharmaceutical cost depending on which plan they pay, which plan they are choose to go with, and also which medication they're on.

So Beth touched on the 340B cost containment thing that we've tried this year, and that applies to the specialty medication.

So if you're on the traditional plan, you're still gonna only pay $35 for your specialty medication.

But now we hope that we can direct some of those specialty medications to our special 340B pharmacy and see a significant savings to the plan.

So it won't interrupt the member in any way, shape, or form.

They would get their medications mailed directly to their house.

However, it would just be filled through a different pharmacy at a much cheaper rate for the plan.

And then the copays associated with the traditional plan are just $10 for a generic, $20 for a tier two, and $35 for the non-preferred and the specialty ones.

That is pretty much the same as it was before.

Oh click too far.

So dental and orthodontic benefits will continue to be the same.

We will utilize Blue Cross Blue Shield for that as well.

Um and none of those numbers are changing, same deductible for a family and an individual.

Preventative care is covered at 100%.

Basic dental care will be the plan will pay 80% and the deductible will apply.

Major restorative plan will pay 50% for maximum dental benefit maximum dental benefit per covered individual is $1,500 per plan year.

And then the plan also will continue to cover up to $1,500 for orthodontic benefits as well.

Vision benefits that will continue to be administered through Boot Classroom Shield, and there's no change to those as well.

Again, employees can get one annual exam at covered at 100%, frames for $125, contact lenses that are medically necessary for $300, and then you know, different types of lenses at different costs there.

So again, no changes to really the core of the plan, just a couple changes to those deductible amounts.

Moving on, we do have some additional services that are available to all plan members, regardless of what plan they are on.

And one of which is our telemedicine service.

So MD Live was implemented last plan year.

Um, and this is a telemedicine service that's available 24-7, including evenings, weekends.

Um, and really the goal with this is to you know provide access to care if it's not available right then, and also offer a low cost option across all the plans to still be able to see behavioral health because that might not always be something that's easily accessible.

So having that in place is nice.

The next one that we just implemented this last year that we are going to continue with going into 2026-2027 plan year is rightway.

Rightway is our healthcare concierge services.

So rightway, I hope most of you have downloaded it.

If you haven't, you should.

Um, it's a cool new app that will help you in a lot of different areas.

They can do a care plan for you, they can find in-network providers for you, they can kind of help you shop around, say you got to get a surgery, they can kind of help you see where maybe you would see the best cost savings with that.

They can also assist with billing questions.

So if you've got a bill and it looks a little off, you can upload your bill right up to their web right into the app and they'll kind of help work through that process and help you figure out where the dispute lies.

And we right now we're at about 20% of our members enrolled, and so we're really gonna make a push this next year to just really educate members on what it can do and how it can make your life a little bit easier in navigating the world of health care because it can be challenging for everybody.

Um, and we are gonna do a raffle during the open enrollment meetings as well.

So employees will be given the chance to win a raffle item from rightway if they register for the program.

So hopefully that will get our enrollment numbers up.

Um, the next slide is talks about our EAP program.

So we have been working with Intermountain Health as far as our EAP program goes.

Um I know that graph is pretty small, but it is nice to see the utilization summary.

Um last year at this time, I think we had about 13 cases, and now we're up to 33 cases.

You know, we never really want to see a high number of our employees needing the assist employee assistance program.

However, we do like that they are being able to utilize it, especially maybe in a crisis service crisis situation.

And the biggest thing with the EAP is that we just continue to educate supervisors, employees that it is available, that it is confidential, that it is free, that no one knows you use it, but that it is encouraged for you to use it if you do need it.

Yeah, so no changes to the renewal rate.

We'll continue to work with Inner Mountain.

I think it's helped having a local provider here because people are getting access to care a little bit faster than normal with our previous um EAP program.

So overall, I think that program is going well, and people seem to be enjoying working with Inner Mountain.

So it's not only counseling services that the EAP can help with, they can also help with financial assistance.

They do these mental health minutes, so they'll do trainings.

So if you're interested in a topic, you're struggling with something, they have a bunch of trainings online that you can look and just access financial assistance, like I said, elder care, um, all sorts of stuff.

So yeah, we're happy that that is continuing for our employees.

The next thing that will continue to have no interruptions is our Mutual of Omaha services.

So currently our basic life insurance policy is still free to all employees.

That provides a $10,000 benefit for an employee, a $2,000 benefit for their spouse, and a $1,000 benefit for any dependent child.

So again, it's not something we like to think about, but it is nice to provide peace of mind for folks that they can have these in place if something were to happen.

Um voluntary term life is just additional life insurance policies that members can sign up for at a cost to them.

Critical illness is one that they could sign up for, and if they get diagnosed with a critical illness and they have that in place, they can be given a lump sum of cash up front to kind of deal with that.

And then accident insurance comes in handy if your nephew hits your son in the head with a golf club and you need to go to the ER.

So that's a fairly cheap plan to have in place that will help kind of offset ER visits, X-rays, that kind of thing.

So I encourage people, even if you don't think you're accident prone to take that one because you just never know.

All right.

And then next, we will continue to use Flores for our health savings, our flexible spending accounts, and our Cobra carrier.

So health savings account work in the way that if you're on the high deductible plan, you're eligible to enroll in a health savings account.

Um health savings accounts are just that.

They're a savings account.

You can elect a certain amount to put into it each pay period.

It's pre-taxed, goes into a debit card, it's yours to keep.

They have a variety of different um expenses you can use it for, doctor visits, things at the store.

They have an FSA, HSA store where you can use it to buy things.

Um we're happy with Flores and we're glad that that's continuing.

Um the flexible spending account is kind of more a use it or lose it type benefit.

So you flex out a certain amount of pre-tax dollars to pay for you know a medical procedure, dental procedure, something like that within that plan year.

Um, and then you pay for that over time as you go.

The difference between an HSA and a flexible spending account is the HSA is yours to keep, the flexible spending account is somewhat employer-owned, so if you leave the organization, you do have to pay back that flexible spending account amount.

Um, and then COBRA coverage is for those employees who maybe have retired or left our organization and are interested in staying on us on our health insurance for 18 months.

We can offer COBRA insurance for 18 months, but they would pay full price plus a 2% charge.

So we will continue to use Flores, those programs will remain unchanged and the same vendor and no rate increases for those.

The only thing that changes with those are some IRS inflation adjustments for 2026.

So for health savings accounts, self-coverage has increased by $100, so you can now flex or you can put out 4,400 for the year or 8750 for a family.

Um, and then they also have a catch-up contribution of age 55 plus.

You can do another additional 1,000 dollars.

Um, for the flexible spending accounts, the contribution, the maximum contribution you can have for the year is $3,400, which is a $100 increase from last year.

And with the flexible spending account, there is a use it or lose it.

So you can only roll over $680 to the next plan year if you didn't use all of your funds from the previous year.

Um, and again, Beth kind of talked about that high deductible plan.

So we saw a hundred dollar increase to the high deductible minimum.

And yeah, so that's that.

Nothing we can do really about those.

And so this is just the last slide.

It just covers all of you know the benefits that we do have.

I touched on all of these, your health savings account, your medical flex spending accounts, limited flex spending accounts.

We offer dependent care flexible spending accounts.

So if you have children under age 13, you can um use pre-tax dollars to pay for daycare expenses too, which is nice for young families.

Um talked about the Mutual of Omaha, MD Live, rightway.

We're still gonna continue to do our well wellness program and utilize my health check 360 for that well-being program.

Um we still continue to offer 457 B retirement options from nationwide, Corbridge, Financial, or M Power.

Um we also work with AFLAC to offer short-term disability insurance.

We will continue to work with um the Marsha McClennan agency team for administrative support, including the online benefits platform of employee navigator.

And that is where we will do all of our selections for open enrollment.

And the last slide I have here is just the dates for open enrollment.

So we're gonna host meetings here in the chamber of com or in the council chambers on Tuesday, May 5th, Wednesday, May 6th, and Thursday, May 7th.

So we encourage all of you to uh join if you would like to, and um we hope that a lot of the employees will attend these meetings as as well.

And then we will start the open enroll enrollment period on May 11th, and that will go through May 2nd.

And we will use employee navigator to do open and uh employee open enrollment again.

Sorry.

All right.

That's all I have.

So I will turn it back over to Beth.

Thank you.

Okay, um, to wrap things up, uh the plan remains stable overall.

Um rising health care costs continue to be a concern, and large claims and prescription costs are key drivers of expenses.

With that said, we've put in strategies in place to help manage prescription costs.

Overall, the benefits remain strong, and employees will see minimal disruption to their coverage and plan designs.

Um so with that, if there's any questions, great.

Thank you very much.

Um great overview of the benefit plan.

Um looking forward to see that rolling through.

Uh on the question, Commissioner Mankins.

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I just want to say thank you, uh, Beth and Emily.

Um I know you guys don't have a very uh fun job at times, and it's difficult, but you continue to work um to try to make it better for the employers here.

Also want to just do with the the EAP service, which is free in that inner mountain um working with them.

Um you couldn't ask for a better partnership with that being free.

Hopefully, like you said, that the supervisors and people are out there making sure that they're taking advantage of that service for sure, because it goes a long ways in the line of work that we all do.

Thank you again, both of you.

Okay.

Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, ladies.

It's a it's a tough field to be in.

You guys sound like experts at it.

I guess my question is how did the trip to the emergency room with the son in the golf club go?

Luckily, we avoided stitches and just some glue, but it was not good.

That's good.

Yeah.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I love the work you guys do.

I know the work you do, and we're always trying to, you guys are always trying to do more with less.

And um, I really appreciate the hard work that goes into it.

The education that you're able to get out to the employees is really, really important.

Um point of clarification for me, and maybe it's just for the for the for everybody.

The EAP is accessible whether you're enrolled in the benefits or not, is that correct?

Um Director Worm.

Yes, that is correct.

Um, it's available to anybody regardless of whether they're on our plan or not, and in their families as well.

Okay.

We encourage it all the time.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other comments?

All right.

Seeing none, thank you very much.

Next item on tonight's agenda is number six, communication 2026-179.

Jesse Gonzalez uh requesting Council Commissioners' permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 2026 committee of the whole meeting regarding a task force so that we may be better equipped to serve the needs of our community and provide safety through mutual aid and education.

Mr.

Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair and members of the Commission.

Again, I'm Jesse Gonzalez with Butte Strong.

Thank you for having us back here again.

We did have something sent in, but I'm not sure if it's up or not.

Okay.

We did send communications as well to all of the members.

Hopefully you guys have seen those.

We can start with our number one, our purpose and vision for the Butte Community Safety Task Force.

Butte has always been a city that takes care of its own in the face of increasing external pressures, including federal enforcement actions that have reached into communities across Montana, including our own.

We believe that our city deserves a unified, proactive and dignit dignity centered approach to community safety.

The Butte Community Safety Task Force is proposed as a standing cross sector body that brings together the people who know this community best.

Our city government, schools, social services, faith leaders, legal advocates, and community members most directly affected by external threats.

This task force will establish shared values, coordinate responses, and build trust and systems needed to keep Butte families safe before a crisis occurs.

The problems that we are solving are Butte's families, workers, neighbors are facing new and complex landscape of risk regarding government overreach with utilization of federal agents framing law abiding community members as threats.

Federal immigration enforcement actions have created fear and uncertainty in communities across the country, including right here in Butte Silverbow County.

Without coordinated local response framework, our community institutions are left to react in isolation, often too late and without shared protocols.

The consequences of inaction fall hardest on the children economically impacted by providers who are no longer present to care for them.

Families who do not know their legal rights or where to turn when their rights have been violated.

Schools, social workers, and community institutions who lack shared response protocols.

Community trust, which erodes when institutions appear disconnected and uncommunicative with one another.

Our mandate for this task force will be one to establish a shared community values statement on rights and dignity of all Butte residents, regardless of their background, develop clear written protocols for how each sector, being schools, hospitals, social services, and faith communities will respond when a community member faces uh things such as detention or removal.

We will coordinate uh and develop response systems that connect families in compromise situations to legal aid, child care, emergency support, and community resources.

We will coordinate with citywide resources and develop coordinated responses developed to help our communities vulnerable populations.

Uh education is another key factor.

Um, launching a citywide know your rights campaign to build to reach every Butte neighborhood, ensuring community members, especially vulnerable populations understand their legal rights and know where to turn for support.

Most of this can be executed via email with infographics and PDFs, and voluntary employee training.

This could also include citywide workshops that are targeted at various professionals across the community, including public health and education sectors, as well as city officials who would benefit from further information regarding materials used.

Information is key.

We will inform people about outreach and mutual efforts to to the public on a quarterly basis, ensuring transparent and community accountability.

Our message is clear to develop a clear public messaging on how local systems, schools, hospitals, social services, an at-risk community members without at-risk community members, building broad public understanding and trust.

We've also proposed a timeline for this for the first phase being by June of 26 to confirm the task force members and appoint a task force chair.

Also, we will have our inaugural task force meeting, adopt a value statement, and begin protocol development and working groups.

Throughout June and July of 26, we anticipate finalizing our response protocols, launch a citywide know your rights campaign, begin quarterly public reporting on outreach and mutual aid efforts, and then phase four will be ongoing.

Continuing monthly meetings, quarterly communication with the city commissioners, and annual review of protocols and membership.

What we asked for from the entire community as well as the commissioners is formal recognition and endorsement of the Butte Community Safety Task Force as an official advisory body to Butte Silverbow.

Authorization and support to seat representatives from city departments and community organizations as fellow task force members.

A liaison from the executive director's office to serve on the task force, and a commitment to receive and consider quarterly task force concerns at our commission meetings.

We had also included in here what the structure would look like with our sectors from the city council, the public schools, legal and civil liberties, members of the Latino community, the LGBTQIA plus community, faith community, medical and public health, as well as the Butte Strong community.

And with that, I will leave it open for questions.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions?

The one question that I would have is have you guys won started meeting?

And if so, when are those meetings and what's the attendance been like?

Um yes, thank you.

Um we actually meet as Butte Strong every Monday.

Okay.

Our attendance ranges anywhere from 20 to 50 participants.

Um and those have been going weekly since January.

And why did you say Butte Strong on Mondays?

What what time was it at?

At 6 30.

6 30.

And where at?

It is at the Unity Church.

There we go, on Montana on South Montana Avenue.

Great.

In the public anybody is welcome to join or to come and um we do our meetings are opening with a potluck.

So if if you are planning on attending, please let us know because we do have a potluck.

We need to make sure we have enough food to feed everyone.

But every meeting uh starts with uh breaking bread with fellow members of our community so that we can help to build more community organization.

Sure.

Okay.

Is there anything commissioner thatcher?

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Gonzalez for being here.

Um I know that you had come back or somebody had come back and said that you know you didn't feel like you were getting enough from us.

And so I guess I have a couple questions on this.

You know, if this is uh open to the neighborhood, or I mean not to the neighborhood, I was reading neighborhood on your thing.

This is open to the community.

I guess what's your what's your um position in getting is it just one of us um that I guess and I guess what's your angle on that firstly?

Secondly, I'm looking at your Oster and uh how are you going about getting your other members of your task force?

Mr.

Gonzalez.

Okay, thank you.

Um yes, so first off, yes, it would be one member from each of the various um agencies that we listed.

And we are currently in contact with uh a few members of the faith community as well as the LGBTQIA community.

I have a few notes here.

Public health, the school systems, uh the ACLU, as well as um some local business owners that have also shown interest.

Follow-up, Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Turn Morgan, thank you, Mr.

Gonzalez.

So that's I guess part of my question is is if we could all go anyway, what are you needing from us?

Is that a better way to phrase that?

I'm not sure.

Mr.

Gonzalez.

Okay, yes.

So the the Butte Strong meetings would be separate from the the task force.

The task force itself would also have one member representing from Butte Strong as well.

It wouldn't encompass the entire group.

Okay.

Any other follow-up questions?

Uh Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Appreciate the presentation, appreciate what you're doing.

I just I'm not struggling.

I don't I hate to say struggle, but I just want to know how I think it's a great idea, right?

Because I think our community needs to be together in so many different ways.

But I just where I struggle, saying it again, is the structure and how it like how do we how do we go about it?

Like that's where I'm I don't know the idea of how we can make that happen through the council's blessing.

Does that make sense?

Mr.

Gonzalez.

It does make sense.

Um we haven't fully fleshed out how that would work.

Our um vision for the the task force itself uh would essentially be, I guess for the best example would be kind of like uh King Arthur's court, where it's rather than having one person seated at the head of the table anything, we have a giant round table full of people that work together within the community.

How we would get that you know how you guys would decide a member from the commission, that I I do not know.

That would I guess would be up to you.

Sure.

Chief Executive Gallagher on the question.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Mr.

Gonzalez, thank you for being here.

I I'm just kind of questioning it's asking you know you're respectfully requesting the following from the executive director which I'm I think you're asking of me and the commissioners to formal formal recognition endorsement.

It's kind of what we went back to with the um community councils is kind of what I'm getting out of this.

But um you it's it's asking the city to take not to take a political position but asking the city to invest in coordination and communication.

So it's you're kind of asking us to coordinate this.

But I I will say and and so the challenge and I know that that that you have an invested you know you you you put in here about ice and and I know that there's concern about ice and what the some of the things that happened and there's been some political outcry about that and kind of saw what happened in Helena when government took a political position in there and and you know it became where they did pass ordinance and then pulled back an ordinance and and it became a a challenge there right because government funding became a positioning thing between the state and local government and so that's where it's a challenge and so um I've worked with the sheriff and and with the county attorney to talk about this that it it's it isn't that we don't we don't agree that we don't want to see the things that happen in Minnesota happen in be we don't want to see those things but we do have a great relationship with our with our sheriff and under sheriff and our police department that we believe that we have relationships that we have if ICE was to come into our community we have those relationships that we can we can work with that to make sure that we can protect our community.

But with that it's asking us to kind of take a position here and and coordinate this and I think that you could have a community type council that you could bring these organizations to the table.

I think council members could could go there if they so choose that all of these things could happen but I don't see that it has to be at the direction of the of myself as the executive director because I just I don't want it to be where it could become a political statement where it could be used against local government or butte silver bowl and that it the state could take a position against us.

And so that's that's what I'm a little fearful on that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr Gonzalez Yes uh thank you Chief Executive um I guess to to further clarify we aren't asking for the commission or for for you to coordinate this the task force will be coordinated by itself we are asking you to come to the table with us not to coordinate or not to serve as an overseeing body um to be at the table with us okay anything on the question commissioner mankins uh thank you uh chairman morgan and uh thank you Mr.

Gonzalez for coming and sharing this but when you say at the table uh I mean um I you know you guys graciously asked me to come to one of your meetings and I is that coming to the table or what more would be um coming to the table to support I like you know the things you're doing but I would have to the sentiment of the chief executive on kind of getting that it's too much of a mix in that political so I'm just um just asking on what what more to the table means Mr.

Gonzalez.

Okay um thank you commissioner um again with the meetings uh particularly our Monday night meetings that is for uh the butte strong organization um not not for the task force um and I do understand that the concerns that that does make perfect sense but um coming to the table again as I said would be you know a representative from from the commission that comes to work with this but again I do understand the apprehensions I guess along those lines I I I think what what people are saying is that you have the ability to create the the task force if you will as it is and establish guidelines and in meetings and then inform this body of when those meetings would be and then if there is a member of this body they would want to attend they would be able to do that right I mean I I think that would be the you know it's kind of what I'm hearing here is that you can start to form that now and just communicate when those meetings are

But again, I do understand the apprehensions I guess along those lines, I I think what what people are saying is that you have the ability to create the the task force, if you will, as it is and establish guidelines and in meetings and then inform this body of when those meetings would be, and then if there is a member of this body they would want to attend, they would be able to do that, right?

I mean, I I think that would be the you know, it's kind of what I'm hearing here is that you can start to form that now and just communicate when those meetings are if that's your if that's the pleasure of the of the group.

Uh Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, uh Chairman Morgan.

I I am fully in agreement, in agree in agreement with Chairman Morgan, but also kind of how I'm envisioning this is like typically if if in I could be wrong, but typically if we are on like outside task forces or boards, it's often at the appointment of the chief executive.

And so if that doesn't happen, it it isn't necessarily like that we're requested to be there.

Does that make sense?

And so just like Commissioner Morgan is saying, like we could volunteer our time, no problem and show up to these meetings, but on these other boards that you might see many of our names on throughout the community and different task force, that's at the direction of the chief executive, which he's saying he he does not provide in this in this instance.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, and and that is understood.

Um I guess yes, we do fully intend to continue to move forward with this, um, knowing full well that I guess we can.

Sure.

Okay, anything else on the question, Commissioner Healy.

I just want to say thank you to you and your family for opening this up to the community.

I do encourage um other commissioners to go just so they know what they're doing.

And it's a very positive experience.

I've been to a couple of the meetings.

Um they had a a a counselor speak on, you know, um educating on de-escalating things.

You'll learn different things.

So um, but just so you know what's going on.

So if somebody else wants to partake, then you have some something just to say about it.

It's a very positive thing for this community, and yeah, it's volunteer.

But you know, I mean, just go to a meeting so you know what what it's about.

It's a very positive thing.

Thank you, Jesse.

Thank you.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you, Jesse, for being here.

Um when when I first talked to you guys about this, it was about educating people so they knew their rights.

And I see that, you know, right in your right in your mandate um around educating people, and so they know their rights.

So if they are approached, if they do feel at risk, if they do feel threatened, um, they know how to um access resources, they know how to respond to aggression, um, uh things like that.

Um I still in the ballpark with how I how I'm understanding you.

Okay, okay.

Um so that's great.

And how often does your task force meet?

I I might have missed that if you guys were talking, I was writing things down.

Um Task Force hasn't started meeting regularly.

Butte Strong meets every Monday.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Oh, Commissioner Shea, follow up.

Yeah, just no, no, you're good.

Just just really quick.

Um I would um like to know when your your committee starts forming up, when it starts firming up a little bit.

If you just keep keep us all informed by send us an email or send Barb an email that she can send it out to us, and you know, as things start to gel, maybe everybody will have a clearer vision of how we can best um help with that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Gonzalez.

Uh I read the one part here that says uh, you know, the Butte Community Safety Task Force as an official advisory body.

I don't think I mean I understand what everybody saying we want to work with this, but I really don't think we have the authority without changing the charter to appoint an advisory body.

I think that would be an executive decision.

I don't know that you know we've got plenty of them already, so I'm not sure to answer that question the official advisory body to the city.

I mean, that may be to the council or to some, but to the city is a pretty vague statement too.

Advisory advisory body to the city.

I mean that sounds like publication for journalism or something.

So I'm not sure where we're going with that.

Thank you.

Chief Executive Gallagher.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chairman Um Morgan and Jesse.

I I I do applaud you for the efforts that you're doing in.

I and I truly do that, and just you know, take away the official and and and do that.

And I I would, you know, come and and and attend one of the meetings.

It's more of just coming and learning and be a part of, but the the official part of this and making an official committee or whatever, but getting representation from other, you know, if the commissioner wanted to come or if somebody wanted to become part of that.

I know that uh some of our commissioners are part of boards that are not official Butte Silver Bowl boards.

I know that uh Commissioner Thatcher and I are on the Digger Athletic Association Board that's not an official board, that type of thing.

So we are on part of other boards and things like that, but as long as it's not an official capacity, and just because of some of the things that as I said, you know, when it when it becomes when you take an official position and then it becomes public record on that official thing, and as I said, all you have to do is follow kind of what happened you know, and then it became very contentious, and then government funding became a big part of that as well.

But thank you for what you're doing, really.

Of course.

Okay, anything else?

All right.

Well, seeing none, thank you very much for the presentation.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to section two communications, uh, communication 26102, Robert Ferram, Butte Montana requesting council commissioners' approval to purchase a parcel of land within city limits of Butesilver Bow, which has been taken back by the county on multiple occasions for tax or back taxes.

I believe we're gonna hold this in abeyance, pending a report back from the land sales committee, which should be relatively soon.

I would assume.

Number two, communication 26159.

JP Gallagher, Chief Executive, requesting council of commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 26.

Com Committee of the Whole meeting regarding the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, BP or BSPRA leadership and the work they have done in the past five years.

Uh we did have this tonight, Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-159 on file.

Second.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26159 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Okay.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

10 yay, one nay.

Okay.

Uh motion passes.

Thank you.

Uh number I don't think you knew three communication 20 26-163.

Josh O'Neill, Commissioner District 7 requesting council of commissioners to call for proposals for the fiscal year 25-26 economic development mill levy funds.

The opening of the proposals will be April 15th, 2026.

Commissioner O'Neill, I believe we can put this on or place this on file.

Commissioner Thatcher.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-163 on file.

Second.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26163 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Including me.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11, yay.

Zero nay.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Motion passes.

I am number four, communication 26164, Josh O'Neill.

Commissioner District 7 requesting council of commissioners to schedule reports from recipients for the 20 or the fiscal year 24-25 economic development mill levy grants on April 8th, 2026, and April 15th, 2026.

A total of 17 organizations will be presenting over the dates listed.

Um Commissioner Thatcher.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-164 on file.

Second okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26164 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11, yay, zero and a thank you.

Motion passes.

Number five, communication 26165.

Requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a bid opening for April 15th, 26th regarding uh or related to the improvements to the Belmont Water Tower Park.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 226-165 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26165 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Will any will everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number six, Karen Hasler, Finance and Budget Director requesting Council of Commissioners.

Um permission to schedule a public hearing on April 22nd, 26 for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 25-26 budget to allow for increased expenditures of unanticipated revenue in the parking garage budget in the amount of $21,000.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-171 on file.

Second.

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 7, 26172, Karen Hassler, Finance and Budget Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on April 22nd for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 25-26 budget to allow for increased expenditures of unanticipated revenue in the parking commission budget for the amount of 25,000 bucks.

Uh Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion, place communication number 2026-172 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26172 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 8, communication 2617, Zach Osborne, Butte Silver Bow Services, her fire services director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on May 6, 2026 for expanding the boundaries of the three MCT Urban Fire District.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the May 6th public hearing.

Number 9, communication 26178, Eric Mankins, Commissioner District 9 requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 26th, Committee of the Whole Meeting for Chairwoman Rayland Brandle of the Study Commission to provide an update on the study commission's findings.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-178 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26178 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Anyone would like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 10, communication 26179.

Jesse Gonzalez, Council of Commissioners, or requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 26th, Committee of the Whole regarding a task force so that we may be better equipped to serve the needs of our community and provide safety through mutual aid and education.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-179 on file.

Second.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26179 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Okay, would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 11, 26180, Bethworm Human Resources Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on April 22nd, 26th.

Committee of the whole meeting regarding the renewal of the Butte Silver Bow self-funded insurance for the July 1st, 26th to June 30th, 27 plan year.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-180 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26180 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Commissioner Callahan, you're gonna wear that button out.

Uh would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

We'll have Vigne Zero nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 12, communication 26181.

Eric Mankins, Commissioner District 9, informing the council of commissioners and the public about a cleanup District 9 event to encourage community participation and promote working together across District 9 to make a positive impact.

Commissioner Mankins, what's the pleasure?

Just a quick uh thank you all with that, and I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of those different um locations on um platinum and excel down by the freeway, by the boulevard, um Copper Mountain, and then by hollow construction.

So the pleasure of mine is just to make sure that everybody's getting out there and participating together to make a uh a uh a stronger uh district nine in that community.

So the pleasure is to place on file.

Okay, is that in the form of a motion, Commissioner Mankins?

Yes.

Okay, do I have a second?

Second.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 26181 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk please record the vote.

11 yay, zero nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Next item on the agenda is if there's any public comment on any item that's not on the agenda.

Now would be your opportunity.

Please come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

And welcome.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Alison Anderson.

I live in District 9.

It's been a while since I spoke in front of this commission.

I went home and started watching all your meetings.

And I'm a little more familiar now with what goes on.

And um I've also watched a majority of the study commission meetings, which I've learned a lot from.

The department heads taught me a lot.

The conversations there were great.

Um, and I've uh I presented to that body on the um neighborhood councils, so I find it interesting.

Jesse and his group are here tonight to ask for a similar um yeah, support, I guess.

I I just it's it's important, I think, that our community is heard and um they're wanting to participate, and I love that.

Um I've heard from volunteer firemen and paid firemen in a lot of those meetings that I've attended.

I went to the listening sessions and have had um other conversations.

And I'm wondering because I haven't seen anything.

Here's my question why I'm here tonight.

Is on House Bill 547 when you went up to Helena?

Because this I agree with Commissioner O'Neill.

I think it's in Butte Silver Bow's best interest to make sure that we're all safe and protected.

Um this um item about the fire services is a little confusing and contentious, and I wonder what's gone on because I know that they said bring it home and figure it out.

It's a leadership issue, and I haven't seen anything on that.

Really?

The conversations between the departments and the leadership, and um, I think we have a lot of amazing men and women who are protecting our community, and I want to make sure that they all stay there and they get the recognition that they deserve and the support that they deserve.

You know, I've been watching the other meetings about the expanding district boundaries and um taxes and all this other stuff, but um I'd love to hear some follow-up on the talks and kind of bringing everybody back to the table to solve our problem because it is a it is a butte problem, and I'd love to see us solve it.

I think we can do that.

Okay, that's it.

Thank you.

And I'm still nervous, but I think I got out most of my points.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's not on tonight's agenda?

All right, seeing oh, Commissioner Fisher.

Uh friendly minute, thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Today is Earth Day, and uh just a reminder to everyone, and this date in 1982 is when Atlantic Richfield decided to shut off the pumps in the underground mines, causing the pit to flood.

And uh it's it's uh it's the largest toxic body of water in probably North America, maybe in America, maybe in the un maybe in the world, who knows?

But um Atlantic Richfield at the time made that decision, which shut off the pumps and flooded the pit.

Now we got all that you know, water underground of our community, they say 10,000 miles of it.

So Atlanta Gridgefield at the time made that decision.

And uh at this time, I don't know of any decision they have to alleviate any disaster planning that would happen with the Berkeley pit.

And I make this comment in uh reference to my dear friend Fritz Daly, who passed away in the past, and this was one of his things to say, so I just thought I'd mention it.

Thank you.

Uh County Attorney Ann Ruth, did you have yeah?

Uh Chairman Morgan, Commissioners, I just wanted to congratulate Ann Shea and Caitlin Lamb on securing guilty verdicts on a child pornography case that they prosecuted.

Great.

Great.

Okay, with that being said, I would ask for a motion to adjourn.