Great Falls’ parking fund is expected to exceed a $100,000 budget deficit by January, according to a city official, and has been losing as much as $20,000 each month.
While the parking system’s issues have been mounting for years, the Great Falls City Commission may take action soon, which could include raising hourly parking rates, increasing fines and shedding operations that heavily rely on personnel costs.
“The parking program as it functions today can no longer go forth as such,” Brock Cherry, the city’s planning and community development director, told Downtown Development Partnership members last week.
Cherry presented the parking situation at two meetings last week to inform stakeholders ahead of the city commission’s potential to make revisions. In addition to the Downtown Development Partnership, Cherry gave a similar presentation before the parking advisory commission, which has been discussing these issues for months.
Amid a strong rebound of Great Falls’ downtown district, parking remains a difficult subject. Jayson Olthoff, a member of the city’s parking advisory commission, told Montana Free Press that it can be challenging to please various stakeholders who, at times, can have competing interests.
“It has been a difficult thing,” Olthoff said, “because we can’t please everybody.”
There are residents who pay to park downtown but are sensitive to the costs. Some older residents don’t like to use the payment kiosks or the app and prefer the coin-operated meters, Olthoff said. The city has tried some public outreach campaigns in the past to demonstrate how to use the kiosks.
There are downtown business owners who are the beneficiaries of downtown traffic and are also sensitive to program shifts that might deter potential customers. Businesses have sponsored free, short-term parking spots to try and attract a revolving stream of users.
And there are visitors, whom Olthoff said tend to have few issues with the system.
“We also have our tourists who travel,” he said. “They come down here and have no problem with it. They said it’s the cheapest there is.”
But given the status of the parking fund, the city may need to make adjustments to maintain a functioning program.
There are about 3,600 publicly available parking spots downtown. Parking at one of the 1,039 metered street spaces costs $1 per hour, and weekends and evenings are free. The north parking garage and some city-owned parking lots are $0.50 per hour. The south parking garage and other lots have monthly permit plans.
For comparison, Helena downtown street parking is $1 per hour after a free 15 minutes. Missoula street parking is generally $1 per hour, and the rate in Billings is $1.50 for each of the first two hours.
Kellie Pierce, director of the downtown business improvement district, told MTFP in an email that the most common parking complaints are related to walking to the payment kiosks and skepticism about using the payment app. In addition, the app charges a $0.45 service fee for each transaction.
On-street parking makes up nearly $23,000 each month — close to half of the monthly parking revenue in Great Falls, according to an October parking memo from Cherry to city officials. The north parking garage generates approximately $13,000 per month, while the south parking garage earns just over $5,000. Add in a bit more from leased parking lots, and the downtown parking system brings in between $45,000 and $50,000 each month.
Cherry’s memo said that the two parking garages have many deferred maintenance needs. The south garage alone needs about $695,000 in structural repairs, the document states.
Costs have consistently outpaced parking revenue, particularly through the contract with SP Plus, which provides personnel and enforcement. That contract alone is at least $35,000 per month. Adding in other administrative costs, the parking division spends more than $60,000 to run the program in Great Falls, according to Cherry’s memo.
The parking advisory commission voted in August to increase some violation fines and ancillary fees, such as what businesses pay to have free courtesy spots. But that commission left the on-street metered parking rate unchanged. The group was also pursuing an allocation from the downtown tax increment financing (TIF) district to help cover the SP Plus contract.
Cherry said last week that the city’s legal team determined that TIF money was ineligible for personnel costs, which is the main driver of the fund deficit.
To stabilize the program, city commissioners may soon consider more drastic changes that could build off the parking commission’s previous recommendations and go further. Cherry said that a special city commission meeting specifically related to parking could take place as soon as the first week of December. Many of the options, Cherry wrote in his memo, are “unpopular choices.”
The options on the table include cutting the SP Plus contract, though parking administration would be left to employees of the Planning and Community Development department, which does not have experience in parking enforcement, Cherry said.
City commissioners could opt to end various courtesy programs, including the current policy that allows the first parking ticket to be free. Although the parking commission had previously decided to keep courtesy tickets, Cherry’s parking memo stated that they “weaken the system” amid a broader climate of underwhelming parking enforcement. Lonnie Hill, deputy planning and community development director, told the parking commission last week that about 6,000 courtesy tickets are issued each year.
At the current fine of $5 for a first violation, that’s missed revenue of $30,000.
“We can’t afford courtesy tickets,” Cherry said at last week’s parking commission meeting.
The city may also eliminate the coin parking meters, which require labor costs for collection and deposit. And the meters themselves are old. Olthoff, the parking commission member, said that it’s difficult to locate parts for the meters if they break.
And, the commission could also decide to raise parking fees and fines, which could bring the parking operation closer to breaking even but risks agitating residents who are already frustrated with downtown parking.
“The number one factor that we need to keep in mind is affordability of parking,” Pierce told MTFP in an email. “If rates increase significantly, people will be less likely to come downtown to shop and dine.”
She added that the parking system should have time limits to encourage customer turnover (the current on-street limit is two hours) and that residents should be encouraged to use the parking garages, which free up on-street space and have lower fees.
Olthoff said that he hopes that difficult decisions come with a strong public outreach component.
“Change is going to happen,” he said. “We know that. My wish would be that we need to educate. We don’t want to let the horse get in front of us. We need to educate all avenues to get the word out.”
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