“Taxes go up. Expenses go up. Needs go up. And expectations from citizens increase,” Engen said at the time. “The myth that governments can provide service for free has been perpetuated by two wars. So we’re spending money like drunken sailors, as it were, at the federal level while cutting taxes. We don’t get to do that at the city of Missoula. We pay as we go.”

Triepke said that doesn’t have to be the case.

She and her husband divorced two years ago, forcing her to learn to live on a tight budget.

The family enrolled in SNAP and Low Income Energy Assistance Programs to help out and Triepke said the lessons she learned — how to spend and save responsibly — can and should be brought to City Hall.

“We had to regroup,” she said of herself and her four teenage children. “They learned the hard way that they don’t get everything they ask for anymore because we have to make ends meet and pay the bills.”

When applied to the city, that philosophy means spending on more useful things and shoring up the city’s contingency fund.