[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Budget questions

[kohls at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

This is a follow-up to some of the questions I asked at the study session, and also to the recent information packet memo we received from staff that responded to a number of the study session questions.

-- I had asked about programs that were not able to be funded, and there is a response in the IP memo.  Given how few items are listed (and which all seem to be about capital expenditures), perhaps I should have worded my question differently: which are the highest priority, non-capital items that could not get "full" funding because they just missed the cut?

-- Along the same lines, the IP memo notes that unfunded high-priority needs included fleet budgets.  The fleet replacement shows an ending balance of $8 - 9M for each of the next six years - so I don't quite get this.  Perhaps this is just another example of the difficulties of understanding large fund balances without detailed explanations, but since this fund balance (like several others) continues for years to come, some brief explanation might help.

-- HHS has increased support for Family Resource Schools by > 50% over the past two years.  Although this doesn't show up in the "significant changes" section (and there is considerable inconsistency about what does show up in that section; perhaps this could be fixed next year?), I'd like a brief explanation about why FRS's budget has increased so much while other programs haven't.

-- Perhaps I'm just confused, but I don't quite get why for the library, the dedicated mill levy doesn't show an additional line/amount for the de-Bruced property tax, although such a line is shown for the dedicated property taxes for the permanent parks fund and for CHAP.

-- The ballfield maintenance has moved from Park & Rec to the .25 fund.  No doubt this frees up a lot of P&R money, but obviously puts more ongoing costs into the soon-to-expire .25 fund.  Could we get a quick take on the .25 fund, how much of it now goes to ongoing expenses, and the impact of its expiration?

-- The .15 fund has - thankfully! - largely disappeared as it should, since it is no longer earmarked.  Unfortunately, however, the .15 allocation is still shown (p. 96), and the effect is to "hide" GF contributions (or at least make them very hard to find).  It may be too late for this year, but - please! - next year, get rid of the .15 completely.

-- As a heads-up, I think council needs to discuss the Chamber membership - or any membership in a group that takes positions on local issues/candidates.  To be clear, the BEC/BCVB are fine (so far as I know), attending meetings/dinners is fine, etc.  But membership seems quite inappropriate.

-- I'd like to see the Council budget broken out in more detail (actually, there is no detail at all currently).  Although it's a small amount, I think it would be useful to see how council spends its budget.  In addition, I think we need to - once again - consider the very small travel/conference budgets given to each councilmember.   In particular, I think members should be encouraged to use their allowances, not "save" them for those of us (and I am no doubt the biggest spender here) who travel for external meetings (CML/NLC).  So, I think we should explicitly set aside some funds for those external meetings, as well as special travel by the mayor - and just carry that over from year to year if it's not used.  But let's be more explicit about this, and recognize where we are spending money and for what purposes.

-- Perhaps this isn't really a budget issue but more suited to a discussion with Open Space, but the huge fund balance stands out.  No doubt most/all of this will eventually be spent on acquisition, but I'd like a much clearer picture of how that will happen, how much is really needed, etc.  And I've been assured several times that the ongoing .4% sales tax will be sufficient for OS O&M - but the budget suggests otherwise, something I think we also need to better understand.

Thanks -- Matt