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Tax increase, cash reserves will cover new expenses in 2027 Great Falls budget (MTFP)

“The vote on the coming year’s budget was split over accusations that city commission pay increases weren’t transparent.

The Great Falls City Commission Tuesday passed a $169 million budget for 2027 and gave initial approval to property tax increases of about $61 on a $600,000 home.

The budget includes plans to use $631,732 in general fund reserves to cover expenses, an annual practice that has diminished those reserves in recent years. And while not all budget requests made it into the 2027 document, city commissioners and the mayor will receive pay increases in a process that one commissioner decried as opaque.

The 6.59% property tax increase will amount to $1.4 million for the city’s general fund. Montana law allows cities to pass limited increases without voter approval to reflect inflation and health insurance costs. About $820,000 of the increase is explicitly reserved for staff health insurance.

Two residents spoke at the public hearing Tuesday night against the tax increases. City leaders pointed to increased expenses, primarily from labor costs resulting from union contracts. Salary and benefit costs are expected to increase by nearly $4.3 million across all city departments in 2027. The sharpest increases are in departments covered by the property tax-supported general fund, which covers city administration and park and recreation, as well as public safety departments like fire, police and courts.

“It would be really nice to say no more taxes,” Commissioner Rick Tryon said after the public comments. “But in reality, and being responsible, we can’t do that.”

Not all budget requests were granted. City documents show several requests for fire and police personnel and equipment that weren’t granted in the 2027 budget. A request for an additional $100,000 to support the Scheels Aim High Big Sky recreation center was denied, though the facility was already slated for a $400,000 infusion from the city’s general fund.”

As Warsh and the Fed contemplate fewer meetings, markets brace for potential volatility ahead (CNBC)

“Add the possibility of fewer meetings into the mix of how Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh wants to reduce the central bank’s footprint on financial markets, a move that some experts say could introduce both volatility and opportunity for investors.

Since taking office in May, Warsh has implemented several measures that reverse decades of Fed culture in which policymakers have been aggressively transparent — some say overly so — about where they think monetary policy is headed.

Thus far, he has curtailed so-called forward guidance, or how the Fed signals its future rate moves, dramatically shortened the postmeeting statement and provided cryptic and often evasive answers when questioned about his views during the two news conferences he’s held so far.

Now comes the possibility, discussed in what one Fed source described as mostly hypothetical terms, of reducing the long-held schedule of eight meetings each year for the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

Such a move would further curtail the communications output from the Warsh Fed — and lead to some uncertain outcomes for the stock and bond markets.

“Certainly, it’s going to increase volatility,” said George Catrambone, head of fixed income for the Americas at DWS Group. “Having less transparency forces market participants to hedge or have a wider dispersion of outcomes.”

“I don’t think there’s any magic number about eight or 10 or six. You know, we always have the ability to call emergency meetings if things happen, but that’s a big event,” he said. “When the FOMC calls an emergency meeting, it really sends a signal that we’re concerned about something. And so, you know, I think I’m open-minded. I don’t have a strong view.”

Concerns already have been raised about the chairman’s feelings over forward guidance, and that has been exacerbated by a loosely defined reaction function — a delineation of the economic conditions that would cause the Fed to react. Warsh also has spoken critically about the Fed’s “dot plot” of individual officials’ rate expectations and declined to submit his own dot when the Federal Open Market Committee last updated the grid in June.

Adding to the information vacuum by only meeting, say, four or six times a year raises further concerns that a market that has for decades looked for cues from the Fed now will have to guess at policy.”

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