Staff recommends that the City Council conduct a public hearing and adopt a Resolution creating Downtown Business Improvement District 0001, effective August 22, 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. On July 28, 2025, Council adopted Resolution 25-11281 indicating its intent to create the BID and set the public hearing for August 11, 2025. Notice was sent to all owners of property within the district regarding the Council's intent to create the district and that the property owners may submit written comments or verbal testimony at the public hearing. The BID's work plan focuses their spending on public safety, funding a portion of police officers, beautification with the flower baskets program, graffiti removal and public art, garbage removal and sidewalk maintenance.

City Council may:

• Approve the resolution creating the downtown BID, effective August 22, 2025, or;
• Delay adoption of the resolution, or;
• Disapprove the resolution. The current district will sunset August 22, 2025, and the BID's activities will then be suspended.

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.