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Billings officials say changes to the state’s property tax laws will likely squeeze the city’s public safety budgets during the next fiscal year, and the city’s chief of police cautioned that residents should expect a decrease in services. 

“We’ll make things work, because we got what we got,” Billings Chief of Police Rich St. John told �ԹϺ���. “You just may have to lower your expectations, and the citizens might have to lower their expectations, because making cuts, we’re not going to be able to do everything that we do now.” 

The Montana Legislature this past session approved a second-home tax policy through a package of bills designed to give homeowners relief from high taxes associated with skyrocketing property values. Interim rates were passed for fiscal year 2026, which starts on July 1, 2025. 

City officials said the policy could have devastating consequences for Billings. Billings is one of two places in Montana with a that limits the amount of mills the city can levy without voter approval. The restriction means that the city cannot automatically adjust property tax calculations to compensate for how the tax relief policy will shrink the tax values of its residential property. 

City leaders were then faced with whether to follow the voter-approved charter or go along with an override provision lawmakers inserted in the tax policy in an effort to address Billings’ charter issue, a move that risks upsetting city taxpayers by denying them a tax decrease. Most of the revenue loss would have resulted in dramatic cuts to the city’s police and fire departments, as City Finance Director Andy Zoeller explained that the two agencies take up the majority of the budget.

In the end, City Attorney Gina Dahl said the decision is out of the city council’s hands, as the state law trumps any city policy. According to city leaders, the override provision inserted by legislators will preserve the city’s property tax revenue for one year and maintain the $55 million revenue for FY26. Zoeller said city leaders now have to start thinking about how to prepare for FY27, when the property tax calculations adjust again and set Billings up for a $1.2 million decrease in revenue if voters don’t approve more mills.

Zoeller said the city had anticipated a 4% revenue increase for the upcoming fiscal year if lawmakers had left the tax code unchanged, which would amount to $2.3 million. However, it now has to set a revenue-neutral budget. The budgetary restraints are being spread proportionally among the city’s departments that use property tax revenue, primarily impacting the police and fire departments. 

Police Chief St. John said, though the situation is not ideal, there is a silver lining. 

“The good news for us, we’re not laying anybody off,” he said. “Anything that we’re going to have to come up with will be from vacancy savings and some other adjustments, operations and maintenance and other programs.”

The department currently has job openings for 15 officers. St. John said he hopes to fill a small number of those positions, although a budget deficit is likely unless voters approve raising the number of mills. 

“So that puts us in a situation where we’re not able to grow the department,” the chief said. “We’re going to make some hard decisions. Of the progress we’ve made out there, what can we not do any longer? Where am I going to get people?” 

Of major concern, St. John said, is the department’s ability to handle the current volume of calls and the level of criminal activity in the city. 

St. John recently presented his department’s to the Billings City Council and offered a one-word assessment of the city in 2024 compared to the previous year: “calmer.”

Billings Police Department Annual Report 2024

St. John said while calls for service are down sharply from the year before, the rate of violent crimes — like aggravated assault, rape and murder — remains critically high.In fact, according to FBI statistics, Billings experiences those types of serious incidents at about two and a half times the national rate.

“You have a very busy city from a crime standpoint,” Wayne Hiltz, with the Center of Public Safety Management that was commissioned by the council to evaluate its public safety agencies, said . “Your police department is challenged. They are a very busy, hardworking agency.” 

CPSM Presentation to Billings City Council, Jan. 6, 2025

Whether the Billings Police Department has sufficient staffing to meet the city’s growing needs remains a question, St. John said. The department is authorized to have 177 sworn officers, with eight of those positions approved in February 2025. 

T will be key to the department’s ability to fulfill its responsibility to keep the community safe. However, with the budget cuts, the police department will be limited in how many positions it can fill. 

Finance Director Zoeller presented a preliminary budget to the council on May 19 with recommendations to make up the $2.3 million shortfall. Based on that preliminary budget, outside of the police, other city departments will also have to adjust. Several open positions throughout the city’s operations will remain unfilled, and the city will cut back substantially on funding to the parks and recreation department if Zoeller’s budget is approved.

The City Council will hold additional budget discussions on June 2 and 3. A preliminary budget is expected to be adopted on June 23 and finalized on August 25. The proposed 2026 budget can be viewed on the  

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