HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-26-26 Public Comment - Gallatin Valley Sentinel - Charter Text RecommendationsFrom:The Gallatin Valley Sentinel
To:Bozeman Goverment Study Commission
Subject:[EXTERNAL][Possible Scam Fraud]Charter Text Recommendations
Date:Friday, June 26, 2026 4:50:38 PM
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Members of the Bozeman Study Commission,
We are writing today to lift up and offer suggested replacement language for three key areas of thecharter. We will be submitting a much more detailed public comment later today, but we want toensure that the three key recommendations listed below do not get lost in the larger message.
Concerns raised at the recent public hearing suggest that voters may not approve the charter ascurrently proposed, and based on public comment you have received, our survey results, and otherpublic outreach we have conducted, that outcome may be likely without changes to these three keyareas: the Compensation Board, how vacancies are filled for the role of mayor, and who isresponsible for creating potential ward boundaries and under what conditions.
We encourage you to adopt the language recommended below, which takes into account thespecific recommendations heard during your public hearing and, where specific recommendationswere absent, draws on the intent of public comment combined with best practice research to craftcarefully considered language.
1. Compensation Board
We urge the Study Commission to adopt the following language in the charter in Section 2.04:
“A Compensation Board shall be created that will convene annually to assess and determinecompensation for the mayor and commissioners. The Board shall consist of five (5) membersappointed by the City Commission, each serving a term of four (4) years. Only qualified electors
whose principal residence is in the City of Bozeman shall be eligible to serve on the Board. Noelected city official, city employee, or anyone with a direct financial interest in city contracts or cityfinances may be a member of the Compensation Board. All meetings of the Board shall be open tothe public, and the Board shall provide a public comment period before any compensationdetermination is finalized.”
This language establishes the structural independence necessary for a compensation process thatresidents can trust. The exclusion of elected officials, city employees, and those with financial
conflicts eliminates the most obvious avenues for self-dealing. Four-year terms provide continuitywithout allowing any single commission to entrench its preferences on the board. Crucially, openmeetings and a public comment period ensure that Bozeman residents have a voice in the processbefore any determination is made.
Commissioner Taylor's comments have suggested that you are trying to find a way for Bozemancommissioners to be paid closer to (or more than) what Gallatin County commissioners are paid.This is a target that some, or all, of the Study Commission, appears to personally believe Bozemancity commissioners should be paid, but this is not tied to public feedback, and the rationale isarbitrary at best. Regardless of someone's position on whether Bozeman commissioners should bepaid the same, more, or less, the fact is that Bozeman commisisoners are the highest paid in thestate:
Bozeman: $29,412 / yearMissoula: $19,454 / yearBillings: $12,000 / yearGreat Falls: $5,844 / year
Given that Bozeman commissioners are already compensated at a level significantly above peercities, the case for an independent Compensation Board that is free from the influence of thosewhose pay it determines, is stronger, not weaker. Residents deserve confidence that any futureadjustments reflect genuine community input and independent judgment, not a predeterminedoutcome.
The proposed prescriptive formula tied to Area Median Income (AMI) also raises serious concerns.The Gallatin County AMI for a household of four has fluctuated significantly in recent years:
2026: $130,2002025: $120,7002024: $109,0002023: $126,4002022: $104,700(https://www.huduser.gov/datasets/il/il2026/summary?reporttype=county&year=2026&counties=3003199999&states=30&q=Gallatin%20County,%20MT)
As you can see, between 2023 and 2024, the AMI decreased significantly. Based on yourprescriptive formula, if it is determined that the appropriate percentage of a full-time equivalent is100%, then commission pay would have decreased by $17,400 between 2023 and 2024, with nocorresponding changes to their actual hours worked. Using this example, to keep pay consistent, theCompensation Board would have had to say their full-time equivalent was 116%. That would thenraise questions to the public if pay is supposed to be based on the appropriate FTE percentage, ifcommissioners were working 16% more hours in that year, or if their proclaimed hours workedwere inflated to keep their paychecks the same, and this will diminish public trust.
Additional questions remain about why AMI for a household of four was selected over a householdof one, two, or three, but the more fundamental point is that the charter should not contain aprescriptive formula at all. Compensation determinations should be left to the Compensation Board,which is precisely the body designed to make them.
It is similarly arbitrary to designate two commissioners as voting members of the CompensationBoard. The rationale offered by Commissioner Taylor, that all Gallatin County commissioners siton the county's compensation board, is an apples-to-oranges comparison to Bozeman. The county'sarrangement is governed by MCA 7-4-2503
(https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/2017/mca/title_0070/chapter_0040/part_0250/section_0030/0070-0040-0250-0030.html), and the county commission determines pay for other elected officials, suchas the county clerk, sheriff, and treasurer, not just for themselves. The situations are notcomparable.
Because Bozeman operates under self-governing powers, the city has the flexibility and theresponsibility to ask whether it is truly best practice for elected officials to serve as voting membersof a board that sets their own compensation, and whether selecting two members out of acommission of four (or six) plus the mayor adequately represents the full body. A better approachwould be for the Compensation Board to survey all commissioners and the mayor, ensuring that theperspectives and reported workloads of the entire body inform the Board's determination, ratherthan relying on two self-selected representatives to speak for the rest. But the charter is not theplace to define this work. The charter should just establish the minimum framework for the creationof the board, and let future policies determine the "how."
2. Mayoral Succession
We urge the Study Commission to adopt the following succession language in Section 2.06(c):
“In the event of a vacancy in the office of mayor, the vice mayor shall assume the duties of mayorfor the remainder of the term. If the vice mayor is unable or unwilling to serve, the city commissionshall appoint one of the remaining elected commissioners to fill the role. Only if no electedcommissioner is willing or able to serve shall the commission consider an appointment fromoutside the elected body.”
This approach prioritizes democratic legitimacy at every step. The vice mayor, having been electedby Bozeman voters, and appointed to the role by the rest of the elected body, is the natural andappropriate first successor. Turning next to the remaining elected commissioners keeps the office inthe hands of those the public has already entrusted with governance. An outside appointmentbecomes an option only as a last resort, which is a sensible safeguard that should nonethelessremain available. This clear order of succession removes ambiguity from a process that, without it,could become a source of significant civic disruption.
The charter should provide an unambiguous, step-by-step process for filling a vacancy in the officeof mayor. Public comment and our outreach results indicate that residents do not like theappointment process for filling vacancies. Bypassing the elected body entirely to appoint an outsideindividual to the office of mayor, one of the most consequential positions in city government,would compound that distrust when public confidence in local governance is most needed.
There is a practical case for this approach as well. Because of the duties retained in the charter, theoffice of mayor carries significant responsibilities, and filling a vacancy is not the time for a newappointee to assume the position without prior familiarity with city operations. A sittingcommissioner already understands the city's budget process, its ongoing initiatives, its staff, and thepolicy debates currently before the commission. Stepping into the mayor's role from thatfoundation is a very different proposition than placing someone entirely new in the position with noprior exposure to how city government actually functions. Keeping succession within the electedbody is not merely a matter of democratic principle; it is a matter of competence and continuity ofgovernance for the residents of Bozeman.
The public spoke and said that the role of deputy mayor was confusing and unnecessary, and theStudy Commission responded to that by removing the deputy mayor and replacing it with a vicemayor, but there has not been an exploration or public education on what the potential tradeoffs andunintended consequences of removing the deputy mayor role would be. The process of appointing
an outside replacement in the event of a vacancy in the mayor's seat is not something the publicwants, especially considering how much they already do not like the appointment process forcommissioners.
3. Independent Citizens' Redistricting Advisory Board
Ward boundaries determine who represents Bozeman residents and how effectively everyneighborhood's voice is heard. When those boundaries are drawn by elected officials themselves,the risk of manipulation, intentional or not, is real, and history has shown repeatedly that thetemptation to draw lines that favor incumbents over residents is difficult to resist. We urge theStudy Commission to establish an independent Citizens' Redistricting Advisory Board with thefollowing charter language in Section 7.02:
“(a) Citizens’ Redistricting Advisory Board. The city commission shall establish an independentCitizens’ Redistricting Advisory Board consisting of five (5) members who are qualified electorsdomiciled within the city limits of Bozeman. No elected official, city employee, or declaredcandidate for public office shall serve on the Board. Board members shall be appointed by the City
Commission following a public application process, ensuring geographic diversity across the city.
(b) Standards and Criteria. The Board shall divide the city into [four (4) or six (6)] wards bysubmitting a final report to the City Commission for adoption by ordinance. Each ward shall becompact, contiguous, and the population disparity between wards shall not exceed ten percent(10%) at the time of any boundary determination. Boundaries of each ward shall be compact,contiguous, as nearly equal in population as practicable, and shall preserve existing Neighborhood
Association boundaries to the maximum extent feasible. No ward shall be drawn for the purpose offavoring or discriminating against any political party of incumbent officeholder; provided,however, that no boundary alteration shall exclude an incumbent commissioner from their wardprior to the expiration of that incumbent’s current term. Changes to the boundaries of a ward maynot be made between the city commission candidate filing date and the date of the subsequentelection. Commissioners forfeit their office if their principal residence is no longer within the ward
the commissioner represents.
(c) Timeline and Public Process. The Board shall conduct its work in public meetings in an open,transparent manner and shall hold a minimum of two (2) public hearings before finalizing anyward map. The Board shall complete and file its initial recommended ward boundaries with theCity Commission for adoption by ordinance within ninety (90) days of the Board’s creation. Ward
boundaries shall be reviewed within twelve (12) months following the publication of each decennialfederal census thereafter or sooner if the population disparity is found to exceed ten percent (10%).Upon adoption of the boundaries by ordinance, the ward boundaries shall become legally effectivefor the next scheduled municipal election.”
This language achieves several important goals simultaneously. Citizens, not politicians, draw theward lines, removing the self-interest that has undermined redistricting processes in cities and statesacross the country. The requirement for geographic diversity in board membership ensures all partsof Bozeman have a stake in the outcome. The ten percent population disparity cap and therequirement for compact, contiguous wards protect the principle of equal representation, a standardrooted in both federal case law and widely accepted municipal redistricting practice. PreservingNeighborhood Association boundaries addresses public comment and ensures consistentrepresentation at the neighborhood level. The requirement for at least two public hearings beforeany map is finalized ensures residents have a genuine opportunity to weigh in before boundaries areset.
Equally important is what this language restricts. The current charter draft allows the City
Commission to alter ward boundaries at any time and for any reason, which effectively negates thepurpose of having an independent redistricting process at all. By limiting boundary changes to twodefined triggers, this language ensures that ward boundaries are stable, predictable, and changedonly when genuine representational need requires it, not when it is politically convenient to do so.
The number of wards, four or six, is appropriately left to voters to decide in November; whatmatters is that whichever number is chosen, the process for drawing them is independent,transparent, and fair.
Taken together, these three provisions would give Bozeman a charter that reflects the democraticvalues its residents expect and deserve. Compensation decisions made by independent citizens,leadership transitions that make sense, and ward boundaries drawn fairly, in public, by people withno political stake in the outcome.
We respectfully urge the Commission to adopt this language in the final charter. Thank you foryour service to our community and for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Katie AdamsThe Gallatin Valley Sentinel