Feb. 22—Moscow Mayor Art Bettge laid out some of the financial challenges the city is facing Wednesday during his annual state of the city address, and called on the Idaho Legislature to help.

Bettge explained the city’s highlights of 2023 as well as its coming 2024 goals and challenges during a Moscow Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Best Western Plus University Inn.

Bettge said the city’s annual challenge is providing its services while receiving a relatively low amount of property tax revenue. He said because properties like the schools, churches, government buildings and the University of Idaho are tax-exempt, that leaves more than a billion off the tax rolls.

“Essentially we’re trying to run a city on half a lung of finance,” he said.

He said the city will receive $7.3 million in property taxes for 2024. The Moscow Police Department alone costs $7.7 million to operate.

Bettge said that 78% of its property tax dollars comes from residential properties and only 22% comes from commercial properties.

On top of that, the city is hampered by a recent Idaho Supreme Court case that is affecting where cities can route its money.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed by former Lewiston City Council member John Bradbury against Lewiston. He argued the city had been collecting excessive utility fees and improperly spending municipal funds. Most of Bradbury’s claims were dismissed, but he was successful in arguing that street impact fees were an illegal tax.

This has left a 12% hole in Moscow’s general fund budget and the city had to eliminate six positions. It also means there has been an 18% reduction in street maintenance funds in Moscow, Bettge said.

“Things are a little hard right now,” Bettge said. “We’ll get through it.”

He encouraged people to talk to their legislators about fixing these property tax issues since it is the lawmakers who impose these rules on the city.

Looking forward, Bettge highlighted a couple expensive projects the city is looking to tackle.

It wants to expand and upgrade its city shop, located on North Van Buren Street. The shop is where the city’s equipment and vehicles are serviced. Built in 1968, the shop is not big enough or in proper enough shape to accommodate the city’s fleet of vehicles, Bettge said. He called it “decrepit.”

“1968 is not cutting it,” he said.

A previous study showed the shop needs 258% more space to accommodate its vehicles and equipment. The city plans to spend $3.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to finance the project.

The city is also looking at a $3.5 million price tag to upgrade its emergency radio system. Bettge said the current radio service does not penetrate some of the buildings in the city, which means that emergency responders could be cut off from communication if they are in those buildings.

“We owe it to our emergency responders to give them the tools that they need to do their jobs,” Bettge said.

He said the city will open up bids to replace the radio infrastructure Feb. 27.

Moscow continues to grow. Bettge said the city permitted 104 new dwelling units for construction in 2023. But construction still is not keeping up with demand for more housing.

“To try to keep things going, we need to do more infill work, more redevelopment work, probably more dense, which means vertical housing options for people in order to get the cost of the dwelling unit down to something that is less than unaffordable for people” he said.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.