Staff recommends that the City Council adopt the Resolution of Intent to create the downtown Business Improvement District No. 0001 and set a public hearing for August 11, 2025.

The City Council created the downtown Business Improvement District (BID) No. 0001 in August 2015. State law sunsets districts after 10 years and re-creating them requires the same procedure as the original.  Owners of more than 60% of the area of the proposed district property must sign and submit a petition to initiate a district.  Downtown and East Billings property owners have submitted a petition with signatures that represent 71.88% of the property within the proposed district.  The first step toward re-creating this district is for the City Council to accept the petition and adopt a Resolution of Intent to create the BID.  The resolution also sets a public hearing for August 11, 2025.  If the Council adopts the resolution, present BID managers will send all owners of property within the district a notice regarding the Council's intentions and that they may submit written comments or verbal testimony at the hearing. 

The BID's work plan focuses their spending on public safety, funding a portion of three police officers, beautification with the flower baskets program, graffiti removal and public art, garbage removal and sidewalk maintenance.

City Council may:

• Approve the resolution stating the Council's intent to create a downtown BID and set a public hearing for August 11, 2025, or;
• Disapprove the resolution.  The present BID will terminate August 22, 2025, and the City will not charge additional tax year 2025 assessments against the downtown properties.  The BID services such as downtown police officers, snow removal, trash service and landscaping maintenance will be terminated as soon as the tax year 2025 assessments and any reserves are expended. 

If the Council creates the new district, the City's properties will be assessed equally with private property.  The BID assessment for tax year 2026 will be approximately $557,834. The City's Finance Department prepares the assessments for the BID, sends that information to the County for billing and collection and then distributes the funds to the BID.  By State law, Finance may not recover its costs by charging the BID.