Proposed legislation aims to build fourth fire station, increase number of first responders

This upcoming election, Bozeman voters will be prompted to decide the fates of the First Responder Levy and the Fire House #4 Bond. If passed, the First Responder Levy would fund increased staffing for the fire and police departments and the Fire House #4 Bond would fully fund the building of a new fire station to accommodate Bozeman’s growing west side.

On Oct. 9, the City of Bozeman issued a press release stating the proposed Levy will fund the hiring of an additional 30 sworn police officers — six each year until 2030 — 22 new sworn firefighters to staff the new fire station and 11 new non-sworn positions to support the police and fire departments. According to discoverpolicing.com, sworn officers are officers who have "taken an oath to support the Constitution of the U.S., their state, and the laws of their agency’s jurisdiction.”

According to Forward Montana, a levy “asks voters to agree to a property tax to collect a set dollar amount for a set amount of years,” and a bond “is a process in which a community finances a project through the municipal bond market, by selling bonds, and paying the interest and principal using property taxes.”

Bozeman has grown significantly over the past few decades, but it has not extended more resources to the departments of first responders, according to the City’s website. “The City is struggling to provide critical life-safety and law enforcement services with the same staffing levels of 17 years ago. The City has changed significantly since 2007, and so must our public safety services,” the website reads.

For voters, both bonds and levies amount to an increase in property taxes to fund community initiatives. The last substantial Bozeman public safety levy was passed in 2007 and enabled an increase from 47 officers in 2008 to 65 officers by the end of 2012, according to a Bozeman Daily Chronicle article from 2012.

From 2012 to 2022, Bozeman’s population grew 45 percent from 38,650 to 56,123, according to Google’s Data Commons. Despite that growth, Bozeman still only has 66 sworn officers, according to a KBZK article from June 2024, just one more than in 2012.

“Our response time is well beyond the national response time standard, which is six minutes. We aim to be there in six minutes, but today our numbers are showing us that it's taken us ten minutes to get to most calls today, with the same number of fire trucks that we've had since 2007. We just can't keep up,” Josh Waldo, the fire chief of Bozeman since 2015, said.

“By adding another fire truck or fire station to this equation and what we're calling a quick response unit, it gives us some capacity. So if that fire truck on campus ends up at the hospital on alarm, we can shift that quick response unit up to campus. So if a medical emergency comes out, you still have a unit that's close enough to respond in that six-minute response time window,” Waldo said.

According to the City of Bozeman website, if the Fire Station #4 Bond is passed, it will fund all costs associated with building and equipping a new station to serve the west side of town. Waldo said it will be the first additional station built in Bozeman since Fire Station #3 was erected in 2007.

Additionally, existing stations have seen relocations, but Bozeman has never had more than three active stations at a given time, according to him. Notably, Fire Station #2 just relocated to 575 W. Kagy Blvd near campus in an effort to better serve the Bozeman community, according to the City’s website.

The City of Bozeman website also states that if the Levy and Bond fail, Bozeman residents can expect to experience longer response times from the police and fire departments, further prioritization in call responses and a decline in road safety as well as mounting traffic issues.

“Both departments are stretched thin,” Bozeman Police Chief Jim Veltcamp said. “Our response time is slow. The capacity we have to conduct sufficient investigations has gone down. All we're trying to do is keep up with the growth, the number of calls, the miles of roadway, to quickly respond, and have enough people to respond, regardless whether it's a medical call or some kind of crime in progress.”

“Our goal is to be proactive, to be present in the community and to prevent crime,” he said.

The election will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 5. For more information on the First Responder Levy and Fire House #4 Bond, along with official ballot language, visit bozeman.net/safetyfirst.