"Financial help was first in mind," Bowden says. "The fixed expense don't go away."
Help for employees: 56%
Help with rent: 63%
Access to grants or funding: 67%
Bowden: We're going to be watching sales tax, unemployment.
We're going to be listening; I'll be watching vacancy rates.
Bowden: "My dept has completely exhausted .... I do not believe the city is in a position to close that gap."
70% of revenues will be impacted by COVID, Cheryl Pattelli, CFO, says.
Big drops in clothing stores (-25.29%) restaurants (-22.65%) home furnishings (-25.40%)
Through February, collected March 20, 92% of ppl filed for sales tax but 8% of those did not pay. $1.6M worth of taxes.
BoCo Treasurer is not seeing slowdowns in payments, except for mobile homes and some commercial properties, Pattelli says.
Shutdown period of 10 weeks
Retail sales tax decreases of 45%
Other revenue lines decreases between 10% and 100%
73%: Delay capital projects
66% Reduce operating expenses
65% Delay equipment purchases
53% Hiring freezes
28% Reduction of personnel hours or furloughs
10% Reduction of force (layoffs)
98% anticipate a revenue shortfall in 2020
63% anticipate having to cut public services
55% will have to furlough employees
36% will layoff employees
With a hiring freeze and delayed projects, the city has saved $15.61M so far, $6.52M from the general fund
Capital projects:
Parking kiosk replacement program scaled back – no GF support
Enterprise CRM – Replacement of Inquire Boulder
Replace Police Incident command vehicle
Alpine-Balsam Pavilion interior
Hill Garage financial/legal
Main Library North Building renovation feasibility study
Reduce employee training & development
Skinner: That was a mistake I made, double counting $1.6M. When we did a double-check, staff fixed it.
Pattelli: June 9, our next planned update
Amount of $$ saved "would not be significant." And it would hurt morale.
Critical to health and safety
Could not be cut without a significant and immediate impact, or risk of impact, to the city’s or community’s basic operations and functioning ...
Solely provided by the City of Boulder
Examples: sanitary sewer, dispatch, water distribution, emergency responders, payroll, snow removal
Programs, services or facilities and supporting functions:
Valued by the community and created by the legislative action of the City Council
Could not be cut without some impact, or risk of impact, to the city’s or community’s basic operations and functioning
Programs, services or facilities and supporting functions:
Enhance programs or facilities in ways that advance desired community values
Could be cut without significant or immediate impact to the city’s basic operations and functioning
Programs, services or facilities and supporting functions:
May or may not be duplicative of services already being offered by another gov't agency or non-gov't org
May serve limited purposes or specialized interests
Could be more efficient if provided by NGO
- Apply essential, important, helpful, amenity classifications to entire budget process
- Develop two-year budget cycle to coincide with council terms
- Make committee permanent
- ID triggers for service cuts
Also, committee observed "an over-dedication of taxes which ... win at the ballot box (but) deprives the staff of nimbleness."
"Let's peg a date" to do so.