The Bozeman City Commission has been looking for ways to fund the city’s trails and parks maintenance projects.
“We currently have a $7 million dollar maintenance backlog in our parks, and we have about 150 acres of new parks coming online,” said Bozeman city commissioner, Terry Cunningham.
“We would like to get maintenance covered through a special district. “
The latest plan is to ask voters to approve a parks and trails special district referendum, which would implement a tax to help with the upkeep of the city’s parks and trails.
“Anybody who uses our parks want them to be well maintained. They want them to last, they want the new parks that are coming online to have a great maintenance plan so that we can stretch those investments throughout many years,” said Cunningham.
The City Commission will decide Monday night whether or not to place the initiative on the ballot in May 2020 which may coincide with the the school ballot initiatives.
“So we’ll be on the same bond as the school district at the same time, and so we’re not sure what they’re going to be bringing out, but they will likely have some initiatives as well,” said Cunnigham.
Currently, parks maintenance is comes from the city's general fund, which also funds things like fire and police services.
The Bozeman City Commission says moving parks and trail maintenance into its own fund will help take care of the maintenance backlog.
Commissioners will also vote to fund their capital improvement projects for water, sewer and the wastewater plant Monday evening.
The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall.
