Kalispell City Council will no longer require city managers to live within city limits.  

The decision to do away with the residency requirement came as Council searches for a successor for Doug Russell, who left the city manager position in late August. GMP Consultants was hired last month to spearhead the four- to six-month recruitment process and Development Services Director Jarod Nygren has taken over as interim city manager in the meantime.  

Councilors on Monday night weighed the importance of expertise over experiencing and managing the city as a resident. The body ultimately landed on letting potential applicants know that city residency is preferred but unrequired. 

In 2006, the city enacted an ordinance requiring all city employees to live in Flathead County with a hiring preference given to applicants living in the city. But the ordinance was scrapped in 2022.  

There is still a residency requirement in the City Manager’s code that will have to be updated, City Attorney Johnna Preble told Council.  

Mayor Mark Johnson supported striking the code, saying that the requirement may drive away talented applicants. 

He brought up the possibility of being a qualified applicant in the pool, “but he has three horses, two cows, whatever. Where’s the horse property in Kalispell?” 

“What I am more concerned about is the individual and getting the right team member in place versus that they hit all the boxes,” Johnson said. 

Councilors Sandy Carlson, Sam Nunnally, Kari Gabriel and Chad Graham sided with the mayor’s reasoning.  

Gabriel added that it didn’t make sense to require some city employees to live in the city while others didn't have to.  

Before agreeing to make residency preferred, Councilor Ryan Hunter said that living within the city would lead to better decision-making and introduced the idea of a 12- to 18-month grace period for the incoming city manager to find housing, owing to high housing costs.  

Daoud remained in the minority wanting to keep the residency requirement.  

“This is the one position in the city that I am not willing to let live outside the city because the management that he does is directly affecting the citizens and should affect him or her as well,” Daoud said.  

Councilors were in agreement over the incoming city manager’s salary proposed by the Human Resources department.  

The starting salary range was proposed between $195,000 to $207,000, according to a memo from Director of Human Services Denise Michel. The range came from a review of wages in six comparable cities in the state.  

Russell’s pay in Kalispell for fiscal year 2025 was $204,490 plus health insurance and retirement.  

COUNCIL IS moving forward with transferring ownership of the Central School building to the Northwest Montana History Museum.  

The municipality has leased the 130-year-old historic building at 124 Second Ave. E. to the nonprofit since 1997, but the question of ownership has made it difficult to raise money from private donors and apply to funding programs, according to museum leadership.  

Aside from an initial city investment, the museum has been responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the space, including an $81,000 roof replacement in 2010 and a $61,000 heating and cooling upgrade over the summer, according to the museum.  

The permit parking lot on the north side of the property would remain under city ownership, according to Nygren. The city is also looking to keep the green space open to the public.  

Hunter and Daoud were in favor of adding a restriction keeping the museum from altering its historic architecture.  

COUNCIL ALSO agreed to hiring a third party to deal with ambulance billing for the Kalispell Fire Department as call volumes increase.  

The task is performed by one full-time employee, and the city has seen a 10% to 15% increase in calls every year, “so we’re pretty susceptible to something happening,” Nygren said.  

Kalispell is the only class one city — a city with more than 10,000 people — that still manages billing in-house, according to a memo from Fire Chief Jay Hagen.  

“What we're looking at doing is just trying to maximize our ambulance transporter response revenue,” Nygren said. “Currently we get about 40% of the billing. This would likely increase us to over 50%.” 

Ambulance billing represented about $1.3 million in revenue, according to the fiscal 2025 budget.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].