[bouldercouncilhotline] Operating Budget

[Burton, Jan]

Jane and staff,

The City is well financed and well managed, and I want to complement our staff for their dedication and efforts. However, we have become overly complacent with the vast monetary resources. I’d like to continue to challenge the City Manager’s budget submission for a $389M budget, particularly the Operating Budget increase of 6.6% and headcount increase of 12.

Our residents and businesses are growing weary of property tax increases, and people on a fixed income have no way to cover these increases. The recent Public Participation Working group told us what our citizens and past Councils have discussed for years: we should stop doing so much. Let’s prioritize and double down on those areas we prioritize.

For the next budget submission to Council, could you please consider the following ideas:


  *   We must stop doing things when it no longer adds value to the city. We should wring out 1% of each department’s budget this year, and there should be more targeted cost cutting in selective departments to accommodate growth in others (Council has indicated interest in increased funding for human services agencies and the arts).
  *   Every year, a Budget Oversight committee (Finance and City Manager’s office) should lead a departmental review to stop 10-15% of activities. This means eliminating positions or reassigning to jobs that add value. As an example, when we add a function (and incremental headcount) like public engagement to the City Manager’s staff, we need to remove that function from departments. We can’t add layer over layer of bureaucracy, even when we think it’s a public-related function.
  *   We should get back to prioritizing the basics: police and fire, roads, bike paths, sidewalks, snow removal. A Capital fund in the General Fund should take care of our on-going capital needs, and priority should be set by our most recent community survey.
  *   We should centralize purchasing of commodities. Businesses and most governments did this 20 years ago and found it saved 15-20% of the cost of those items.

Again, while I thank the City staff for all their efforts and hard work, we must be accountable to our residents with financial and operational integrity. Please provide an Operating Budget that is more sensitive to a property tax-weary public.


Jan Burton
Member of City Council

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