Hello, my name is Travis, and I’m one of the homeless people that your tax increase is intended to help. I’d like to take responsibility for what’s happening to your taxes because NO ONE ELSE will, not even the voters who our Mayor can AND WILL now point at when jaws drop at the 16% figure we’re being told is coming. From the link (emphasis mine):
Missoula’s proposed 2025 budget would increase property taxes by roughly 16%, but a majority of that — around 11% — comes from a voter-approved fire levy that passed in June.
Mayor Andrea Davis presented her first budget as the city’s top executive Monday night, which would increase city property taxes by $307 per $450,000 in home value.
In total, the city’s preliminary budget increased from $203 million in 2024 to $217 million in 2025, mostly from expansion of the city’s fire department, police department wage increases and more funding for urban camping programs. Missoula’s budget increased taxes by 9.71% in 2024.
How does our Mayor message her NON-responsibility for this tax increase? She uses words like INHERIT and STRUCTURE to convey a simple message: NOT MY FAULT!
“This is no news to anybody, I inherited a pretty challenging budget structure, a budget deficit quite frankly,” Davis said. “I knew that coming into office, and it has been an area of focus that I intend to work on.”
In yesterday’s post I highlighted the shell-game with the Missoula Redevelopment Agency that our blameless Mayor hinted at when she said money was taken from MRA to cover city budget costs. I’m sure our diligent legacy media will be ALL OVER that, giving us specific numbers. I’ll wait.
While washing dishes yesterday, professionally, I asked my property-owning co-worker if she was enjoying her tax increase, and if she was aware of Tax Increment Financing. It took me less than 5 minutes to horrify her with how our municipal general fund is impacted by the method of skimming off increased tax value from Urban Renewal Districts and sending it to the Missoula Redevelopment Agency so Ellen Buchanan can help Mexican restaurants buy new windows.
Think I’m kidding? Well, I’m not (emphasis mine):
A local Mexican restaurant will be getting a big makeover and a boost of public funding to help the project.
The board of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency recently approved $50,000 in Façade Improvement Program assistance to help the El Cazador Taqueria replace aging windows with a more energy-efficient option.
Maria and Alfredo Hernandez owned and operated the El Cazador in downtown Missoula for 27 years. A few years ago, they bought the building at 2221 S. Ave. W. and now have moved their restaurant operations to that location.
This fiscally retarded financing of new windows for a Mexican restaurant occurred in 2022, with that alleged pandemic in full swing, and ARPA money flowing. But don’t worry, NONE OF THIS is Mayor Davis’ fault.
That’s because it’s MINE!
Not only did I fail to solve homeless when I worked for the Homeless Industrial Complex, but now I’m one of those needy assholes who thinks it’s more important to smoke a nice strain of Sativa than it is to pay $1,000 bucks for a little room to stay in.
It’s exciting to think that entire new government job positions will have to be created to deal with me and my status of living without housing. What kind of help can I expect to receive when the hundreds of thousands of dollars gets approved and all those fresh faces are hired? Will they help me stop drinking? No, I did that myself. Will they help get me a job? No, I did that myself. Will they make Cannabis more affordable for me? No, they need those taxes to cover administrative costs.
According to Susie Lindsay, the Lead Fiscal Analyst for the DOR, in 2023, Montana collected over $57.7 million from cannabis tax revenue. Of that $57.7 million, $47.7 million came from adult use sales, $3 million came from from medical use sales, and the rest were licensing and fees and other administration fees.
Again according to HB 701, at the end of each year, the Department of Revenue must use money in the account to cover admin costs. For 2023, that number came out to be $5.6 million.
$6 million went straight to the Heart Fund account, which is an initiative helping people heal and end addiction through recovery and treatment.
Damn! Maybe I should have waited to end my addiction in order to get compensated somehow for being an addict. For more information on how weed tax money is spent, here’s a simple graphic:
During difficult times people often come together and, with combined resources, find ways to scrape by. What I’m trying to say is I need to get out there and start dating, but human women are kinda terrifying to me, and Vicky, my doll, doesn’t talk back, so after some reflection (and prodding from friends), I decided to go on a first date with AI.
Tomorrow, at Western Montana News, you can read how that first date went, and what I learned from it. I was particularly impressed with ChatGPT’s understanding of Lego Meth Labs, so stay tuned!
If you’d like to make yourself feel better by helping out someone who is less fortunate, then I suggest donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). There’s even a chance that a wave of moral superiority will wash over you after your digital donation is complete, so what are you waiting for?
Thanks for reading!
