// QUANTITY V. QUALITY: DOES BILLINGS HAVE TOO MANY PARKS?

City Council will receive a presentation from the Billings Parks Department on a plan to adjust parks funding to handle routine maintenance of Billings's 98 parks. Titled, "Maintain What We Have," tonight's discussion will focus on a maintenance funding deficit, including redirecting funds from the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and toward parks maintenance staff.

According to the Staff Memo, "The 2017 Comprehensive Parks and Recreation Master Plan identified deficiencies in maintenance funding totaling $2.8 million." The Master Plan also points out that, "Staffing levels are deficient by at least 5.5 FTEs to meet staffing requirements." The presentation includes a map showing how parks maintenance staff cover Billings parks. 

Surveys consistently indicate that residents are happy with the state of Billings parks. The most recent Billings National Community Survey, completed in 2022, shows residents are very satisfied with the quality of our parks and recreation:

"About 6 in 10 respondents were pleased with the overall quality of Billings’ parks and recreation opportunities (69%) and natural environment (59%). At least two-thirds gave high marks to City parks and fitness opportunities, both on par with comparison communities. The availability of paths and walking trails also received strong ratings (67% excellent or good), increasing by nearly 10% since the previous survey iteration." (pg. 7)

Could we really be underfunding parks to the tune of $2.8 million, almost 20% of the currently budgeted parks expenditures ($14,386,270) identified in the FY 2025 Budget? Should the City raise taxes on property owners to pay for this shortfall? How else could this be addressed?

Perhaps we can gather a better idea of how much we should be spending on parks by looking at national data on cities our size. How does our parks spending compare to others? Conveniently, comparison data has already been compiled by the National Recreation and Park Association in their published 2024 NRPA Agency Performance Review. The NRPA gathers data from parks and recreation agencies across the nation to provide an "evidence-based guideline" for comparison of parks metrics on budgets, staffing, programming, and facilities.

We'll look at a few of those metrics to better understand how Billings stacks up. Relative to median values for a cohort of other cities our size (orange bars in the graphs below), Billings:

• Spends more in total on parks
• Spends more per capita on parks
• Spends less per acre on parks
• Has three times as many acres of parks
• Has half as many people per park

The Billings FY 2025 Budget identifies $14.4 million in Parks expenditures while the median for cities our size is only $13.5 million.

Billings has around 121,000 residents, putting parks expenditures per capita at $118.89, higher than the median for cities our size of $87.10.  

Because Billings has so many more acres of parks (2,580 acres according to staff's presentation slides) than cities our size, it's no surprise that we spend less per acre as shown below. According to the NRPA, median spending per acre is $8,002 while Billings is at $5,576.

Just how much more parkland does Billings have than other cities? It's LITERALLY off the charts. With 2,580 acres of parkland, and 121,000 residents we have 21 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents, a measurement that far surpasses the scale of the Y-axis in the chart below. Billings has three times the amount of parkland per resident than the median value of our population cohort.

According to tonight's presentation, Billings tallies 98 parks, putting our resident per park measure at 1,235. The median for cities our size is 3,344. Even if we doubled our population, we'd still have fewer residents per park than the median! This can be a good thing, since we don't want overcrowded parks where people don't have room to recreate. However, that also means a larger burden of parks funding per resident.

Looking at the information above we can draw two conclusions. First, according to residents, the satisfaction with and quality of our parks is high, reflected in continued positive feedback in citizen surveys. Second, Billings's spending on parks is on par with, actually higher than, other cities our size. But we have WAY more parkland per resident than cities of any size! Which leads to difficulties in the funding and maintenance of it all.

The majority of tonight's discussion will focus on a proposal to shift one-time-only parks Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) funds toward the ongoing funding of 5.5 FTEs for maintenance. However, this is not a long-term solution, patching a perennial deficit with one-time funds. Two obvious solutions are to raise property taxes on Billings residents or get rid of City-owned parkland.

Accordingly, one of the recommendations in the comprehensive plan that was included in the Staff Memo is to divest City-owned parkland and it states that staff is still identifying potential parkland. It should be noted that the recommendation to divest City-owned parkland is not a new idea since it was included in the 2017 Parks Master Plan, published seven years ago, and specifically identified 37 pieces of City-owned property to consider offloading. Additionally, over two years ago, City Council passed a Council Initiative on May 9, 2022 directing staff to compile a list of all City properties that could be sold for the development of affordable housing.

Despite the recommendation to divest City-owned land in the 2017 Parks Master Plan and explicit direction from City Council two years ago, the presentation slides do not identify this as part of the solution. It would appear from the presentation materials that the emphasis is on growing government. And the proposal to shift CIP funds to cover more staffing offered tonight will require property owners to pay up in the long run.

What do you think? Does Billings have too many parks? Too much quantity and not enough quality? Or, do you think we need more parks? Better parks? Would you pay more taxes? Maybe, like Goldilocks, you think the quantity and quality of Billings parks is just right?

Our hope with this newsletter is to save you time, keep you up-to-date, and hopefully get you engaged. If you want to weigh in, you can easily write to City Council. Just click the button below and let them know your thoughts.

// WORK SESSION AGENDA - 5:30 p.m. - BILLINGS CITY HALL

In this section, we will include the meeting agenda for you to view. Clicking on the items will take you to more information. No need to read it all, but if something catches your eye, be sure to check it out.

CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Cole 

CLOSED EXECUTIVE SESSION - LITIGATION UPDATE (4:30 PM - 5:30 PM) 

PUBLIC COMMENT ON ALL ITEMS. Comments are limited to three (3) minutes during each public comment period or as set by the Mayor.

1. Friends of the Children Introduction - Nina Hernandez 

2. West End Neighborhood Plan Development Update 

3. Off-The-Streets Update- Jim Mack 

4. Continuum of Care Introduction - Kody Christianson-Linton 

5. Maintain What We Have - Parks Preservation 

HIGHLIGHT UPCOMING AGENDA ITEMS OF COUNCIL INTEREST: 

COUNCIL DISCUSSION: 

PUBLIC COMMENT on “NON-AGENDA ITEMS”. Comments are limited to 3 minutes or as set by the Mayor.

ADJOURN:

// WATCH THE MEETING ON COMMUNITY 7 TELEVISION

// CITY ADMINISTRATOR WEEKLY REPORT

City Administrator Chris Kukulski began the routine of sending a weekly report every Friday to City Council and department heads with the intent to, "communicate the highlights of the past week and any critical issues coming up." The most recent CA Report includes updates on:

• NO CA WEEKLY FOR LAST WEEK DUE TO HOLIDAY

// GET MORE INVOLVED IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Below are some additional public meetings being held this week, along with information about when and where to attend, and what's on the agenda (if one is available).

Tuesday, December 3rd

City Zoning Commission

4:30 - 6:00 pm, Rm 3108, 3rd Floor Stillwater Building, 316 N. 26th St.

Agenda here.

South Billings Urban Renewal Area (SBURA)

7:00 - 8:00 pm, Billings Hotel & Convention Center, 1223 Mullowney Ln.

Wednesday, December 4th

North Park Neighborhood Task Force

7:00 - 8:00 pm, North Park Community Center

// THE SQUEAKY WHEEL

// BOARD & COMMISSION OPENINGS

The Mayor's Office is accepting letters of interest to fill the vacancies listed on the city website. For more information on each specific board, visit the city website. City Boards and Commissions are appointed by the Mayor, confirmed by City Council, are advisory only, and members serve without compensation.

Submit applications to: Mayor's Office, PO Box 1178, Billings, MT 59103-1178.

The DEADLINE for applications is ASAP.

BOARD OPENING (SEATS)

Animal Control Board (1)

REQUIREMENTS

Must live in Billings

// IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

We're seeking your feedback on our 2024 Annual Meeting, presented by NonStop Local and Marsh McLennan Agency.

// ADDITIONAL BILLINGS CHAMBER RESOURCES

// BUSINESS ADVOCACY SPONSORS