Government Doesn’t Shrink; Neither Do Yellowstone County Budgets

In case you haven't seen this yet, Yellowstone County has just released its budget for 2025.

I'm sure you can all guess that is up again: $182,369,879.00. That's a lot of tax.

Government never shrinks or even stays the same. That's just part of life. According to commissioner Don Jones, non-tax related revenues for 2024 exceeded the budget by 9.4% which helps with Metra's budget. Metra took in just over 7 million dollars in revenue from its events and services.

Property taxes also pitched in over 4 million dollars to keep it operating. Keep in mind this is a paid-for facility. It's hard for many to justify tax dollars for recreation, I get it. We do need to do a better job at getting more revenue producing opportunities that will reduce the amount of taxpayer help needed to fund Metra. Hopefully we are on the right track.

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The Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department is also a big chunk of the budget. $59,847,672. That also includes running the detention center. I have said this for a long time, that consolidation is the key into getting more protection for the dollar. There is no reason that a small town like Billings needs two separate law enforcement agencies. Other cities across America that are much larger than we are have learned this.

Redundancy is expensive and when you have a limited tax base it only makes sense. We need to get more bang for our bucks...

See ya tomorrow at 5 am.