14 | City of Missoula Engen. “If we did nothing else, but help better insulate their homes, it would still make a difference.” More than 300 homes participated in the audits and some households have achieved monthly savings of $100 off their former heating bills, enabling them to utilize those funds for other needs. As Engen says, “We’re saving energy, but we’re saving dignity in other cases because having an extra $100 per month can make the difference in buying food, or medicine, or paying down on some other bill.” The audits and weatherization upgrades have ultimately helped save more than 122,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. The City also partnered with industry leader Johnson Controls to identify further savings which could be realized by improvements in municipal infrastructure. As for future plans, Chase Jones indicates that a variety of improvements are in the works, from lighting and building retrofits at City facilities and water conservation projects at many of Missoula’s Park and Recreation sites, to the incorporation of more hybrid-electrical vehicles into city fleet, and more. “We’ll be
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