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There's no doubt Missoula Mayor John Engen knows about belt-tightening. The whole city, in fact, has watched - and applauded - as he lost more than 100 pounds this year, one notch of the belt at a time.

Now it's time for Engen and his colleagues on the Missoula City Council to tighten the proverbial budget belt.

New estimates from the Montana Department of Revenue suggest the city has a budget shortfall of $367,000 for 2009. And the mayor wants to make up the difference by further increasing property taxes. Engen's original budget balanced with a 3.5 percent increase in city property taxes; his revised budget would carry a 4.82 percent increase.

It's not that much money, he says. The overall budget is $42 million, so the shortfall is a relatively small piece of a very big pie. So, too, is Engen's suggested increase in property taxes relatively small. His original budget would have boosted taxes on a $225,000 home by $19 a year; the new proposal would increase that number to $26.

Still, it's an increase the city shouldn't ask of taxpayers in a year when the price of nearly everything has increased. And in a year when Missoula voters already are being asked to tax themselves more for a proposed new emergency operations center, and there's been talk of an added tax on gasoline.

Just as families and businesses are tightening their belts in these less-than-splendid economic times, so too should government. “Look at homeowners,” Missoula businessman Jim Edwards said at a recent council committee meeting. “You don't think that they're making cuts? They're not eating out as much. They're not watering yards as much.”

Surely, the city of Missoula can find ways to cut $367,000 from its budget by putting all those smart and creative folks in City Hall on the hunt for savings. City Council members will meet to do the same on Wednesday. (The Budget Committee of the Whole meets at 2:30 p.m. in the council chambers at 140 W. Pine St.)

One word of caution: Already, some council members are huffing and puffing and threatening to blow down entire houses to achieve a balanced budget, turning what should be a thoughtful process into one that's unnecessarily political. This isn't the time to offhandedly suggest eliminating the jobs of certain city workers or to declare certain city departments “fat.”

This is the time to ask every department in City Hall to step forward with a way to save, to combine some tasks and eliminate others, to use less, to work harder and longer. To do what any well-managed business does when faced with an unexpected drop in revenues. And then, together, Missoula can pull its big municipal belt one notch tighter.

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