Thread by @shayshinecastle

I'll start a new thread for budget stuff. Here's the staff presentation again. Really good info in there; please read: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/2021_Budg…

V unusual budget year, 'cause COVID.
Wallach earlier asked City Manager Jane Brautigam, "Have you ever seen its like?"
No, she said. (She's been here for 12 years, long enough to weather the LAST economic disaster)

"The budget we're preparing for you is a very conservative budget," Brautigam says. We hope a lot of the reductions won't last for all of 2021, but we'd rather you be able to add things back in rather than taking them away.

CU's Wobbekind up now. That "approach is prudent, to say the lease. ... The number of uncertainties are so large that it's extremely difficult" to know what's going to happen, economy-wise.

He's doing a little bit of economic forecasting. "The underlying theme, I have to say, is uncertainty."

There's always the possibility of more dips in GDP based on politics, Wobbekind says, such as the failure to do another stimulus bill. And, of course, COVID outbreaks.

There's also the change for positive changes, like a successful vaccine. That would change the forecast we're using, Wobbekind says.

The recovery will be "swoosh" shaped, Wobbekind believes. (That means slow and steady trends upward rather than big highs and lows.) "That probably means we don't get back to the same employment levels until 2023."

Maybe 6.5% unemployment by 2021, which is not bad, but not where we were pre-COVID. (3.5% nationally)

There was a record increase in personal income in April of this year, due to tax returns, stimulus checks and unemployment BUT a record decrease in compensation from employment.

"We've never seen a % increase like that in history," Wobbekind says.

Some national consumer trends that may impact Boulder: Big box stores (which we don't have) are doing well during the pandemic. Outdoor malls are doing better than indoor ones (we have two outdoor ones so that's a plus).

Tourism is down, which obviously impacts us. University towns often are more stable during downturns but... this downturn is different bc there aren't as many ppl physically at CU, and they won't be doing conferences or meetings.

Boulder County unemployment rate: 6.6%
3,200 city residents stopped looking for work and dropped from the count of labor force. So... it's not as good as it looks.

omg how is it only 6:30? I swear we've been here 2 hrs already. Budget nights are hard.

Young: How did you determine the number of folks who dropped out of the labor force locally? (3,200)
Brian Lewandowski, also of CU: That's a household survey.

That's something that's always been tracked, not anything new.

Wallach: You talked about personal income in the aggregate but what does it look like by different income groups?
Wobbekind: Ppl in upper income brackets are the big savers. They got tax breaks; they're still working.

Lower income ppl are still spending the vast majority of $$ they are getting, Wobbekind says. The unemployment they were getting with the federal boost was substantially higher than what they were making. (That ended in July)

Wobbekind: That's one of the reasons we're "very nervous ... or concerned, I shouldn't say nervous" is that we don't expect another increase in personal income, which boosted spending.

Moving onto the 2021 recommended Boulder budget.

Aimee Kane is talking about the equity of it all. This was the first budget in which equity was considered, city spokesperson Sarah Huntley confirmed earlier today. It's not exactly the full equity tool: It's just a set of qs the dept heads were asked to consider.

What is the policy, activity or budget decision that could impact racial equity?

Who is experiencing or will experience negative impact based on the decision?

Who is experiencing or will experience benefits?

What strategies might mitigate or avoid unintended consequences for people of color?

These qs guided every budget cut, and some reductions were rejected on equity grounds.

All dept heads attending equity training as well.

Every council member did, too, except for Nagle.

An equity specialist position was among those eliminated. It hadn't been filled yet; the city is going to revisit in 2021 as part of a larger racial equity plan and hope the resources are there.

"This is long-term work and this is an iterative process," Kane says.

Total 2021 budget: $337.7M
7.7% smaller than last year, or $28.6M

The city has slightly diff numbers in its charts then I have and idk why...

It has taken me 3 years to get comfortable with the budget but troubleshooting stuff is still beyond me.

OHHH ok ok I figured it out. General fund (excluding transfers and internal service funds) is $120M, down 9.3% or $12.2M from last year.

(including those two things, it's only down ~6%)

Reminder: For every $1 in retail sales tax collected, Boulder gets 44c (33c to Colorado, 12c to RTD/Cultural district, 11c to BoCo)
Of that 44c:
19c to general fund
10c to open space
9c to transportation
3c to parks and rec
3c to community, culture and safety tax (expires in '21)

V good table showing declines in most major revenue sources for the city. Nothing up but property tax.

Speaking of property tax... Every $1 of property tax in BoCo, city of Boulder gets 14c

Of that 14c:
9c to general fund
2c to general fund - public safety
1c to parks & rec
1c to community housing assistance
<1c to library

Property tax 2020-2021 rates:
7.15% (residential) 29% (commercial)
Every $100,000 of home value = $85.66 in property tax
Every $100,000 of commercial value = $347.50 in tax

Back to the general fund, which is all-important bc it's Boulder's discretionary $$ and it pays for so much.

The General Fund gap in the 2021 budget was $13.2 million, largely bc of declines in sales/use tax, which makes up a huge % of the budget.

2021 budget is based on the assumption that sales tax will decline 11% year-over-year.

We're talking about reserves, which is something councilman Wallach brought up in emailed questions (for which I was very grateful, bc I forgot).

He was asking about taking more $$ to patch budget gaps in 2021.

The city doesn't want to do that bc it might need that $$, and bc of the potential for other disasters (flood, fire) best practice is to keep a certain amount in reserves.

Better to not plan on using that $$ and have it if we need it later, finance staff say.

Talking v briefly about dedicated funds, which is $$ for specific purposes. The majority of Boulder's budget is dedicated. You can read more about that here: boulderbeat.news/2020/06/13/in-…

How much city $$ does each dept get? Here (in descending order) for 2021:
Police: 14%
Transportation and Mobility: 12%
Internal services: 12%
OSMP: 11%
Parks & Rec: 11%
Fire: 8%
Housing & Human Services: 8%
Planning: 5%
General Governance: 5%
Community Vitality: 5%

Library & Arts: 3%
Facilities & Fleet: 3%
Climate Initiatives: 2%
Municipal court: 1%

You'll notice police is the single-biggest expenditure. They take the most general fund $$, too: 25%

We're talking police changes now. That dept budget is being reduced 4.8% from 2020

They're keeping some jobs open, but not losing any. They are moving the mental health response team from police to Housing and Human Services.

HHS will hire in-house mental health folks; now, they're contracted out to Mental Health Partners.

Also dropping 3 school resource officers, and shifting the resources to training.

There have been calls to eliminate those altogether, as numerous studies and data have shown that discipline is unequally applied to student of color, including in BVSD.

2 existing SROs will "likely" be at Fairview and Boulder high schools, Brautigam says.

Some other things being cut:
Eliminate Muni Campus overtime

Eliminate Hill Police Annex

Reduce equipment and supplies funding that directly supports police officers and police facilities

Eliminate purchase of IncidentCommand Vehicle

They did spend ~$600K on radio equipment upgrades, body-worn and car cameras and tasers, plus some training stuff.

We're going over other changes, department by department. Here's the link for the presentation again; we're on Slide 46. www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/2021_Budg…

HHS: Cut by 8.3% (although they get a lot of their $ later in the year, through Adjustments to Base, which I still can't really explain to you)

Library & arts, which I mentioned earlier: Cut by 15.6%. Reduced services there due to COVID.

NoBo and Reynolds branches are closed, makerspace moved online

There is a reopening plan to add $$ and services back in over time (at the main library, at least)

Arts did get to add a part-time position for public art.

Parks & rec: Down 0.54% from 2020; staff summary shows 8.8% in "significant reductions" this year.

It's tricky sometimes just comparing one year's budget to the next, because of one-time allocations and expenditures.

I'm going to provide both numbers in most cases, so apologies if it gets confusing.

Parks & rec has a lot of dedicated funding, as does OSMP. They also get a fair share of city dollars: 11% each.

Community Vitality (which does parking and biz stuff, among other things): Down 3.8% from last year (staff shows 9.6% reductions)

Fire-rescue: Down 7.9% from 2020 budget (staff shows only 3.1% reduction)

Planning & development services (which has been significantly restructured, so take this with a grain of salt): Down 16.5% (staff shows just 2.9% of reductions)

A lot of that is 17 positions that were scheduled to end in 2020 anyway.

Communications and engagement was also restructured. Communications took on engagement from the city manager's office. So their budget actually went up 16.3% but without that shift, their budget was cut by 19.3%

One noticeable change: Channel 8 won't live-stream as many board and commission meetings.

Transportation, also restructured in that it was brought out from under public works in this year's budget. Down 29% (staff shows reductions of 9.9%)

Either way MANY cuts to services, including median maintenance, removing emerald ash borer-invested trees, cutting wkend HOP service. There's more but those are all I have time for.

OSMP apparently cut its budget by 8%, but comparing 2020 to 2021 they actually went up by a few hundred $$. There's some discrepancy here bc of the sales tax extension passed last year, which brought in a few million (though less than expected).

One notable thing: No land acquisition $$ in OSMP's capital improvement plan.

Visitation to OSMP has increased a LOT during COVID.

Thats all the debt-level data the city is highlighting. Onto staff changes.

Boulder's full-time workforce this year will be 1,375.83 FTE. It was 1,456.36 FTE in 2020, so down 80.53 BUT there are 10 fixed-term hires so only down 70 FTE.

1,150 city employees will get merit raises (Boulder doesn't do cost-of-living increases). Members of the police union will get a 3.5% increase, per a previously negotiated contract.

Will NOT get merit raises, apologies.

So no merit raises except for union member cops.

Boulder decided to do that rather than continued furloughs, bc those hit lower-paid workers harder.

This is a curios note from Slide 57: "Since 6/1, there have been 72 new hires and 175 voluntary terminations."

175 city employees have voluntarily left their jobs since June??

I'll follow up, bc wut?

We're moving into discussion of the Capital Improvement Program portion of the budget, which I did not read so I will not be very helpful.

What is CIP? The city provides this great definition: "CIP projects are any major project requiring the expenditure of public funds for the purchase, construction, or replacement of the physical assets of the community"

Those are typically four types of projects:
- Capital Maintenance and Enhancement
- New Capital Projects
- Capital Planning Studies
- Land Acquisitions

Some CIP that were changed in 2021:
• Incident Command Vehicle (for police) - cancelled
• Parking garage gateless system installation, deck capital maintenance, staircase replacement - cancelled
• Fire Station #3 - delayed
• Table Mesa multi-modal improvements - delayed

...but maybe cancelled; we'll revisit

• OSMP projects aligned with Master Plan goals - delayed
• Multiple Utility projects - delayed

What will be doing, CIP-wise, in 2021?
- Alpine Balsam Redevelopment, $392,258
- Deferred maintenance, $816,583

- Enterprise Constituent Relationship Management Software, $300,000
- Human Resources Information System, $4,500,000

Open Space Maintenance and Stewardship
o Gunbarrel Hill trail complex maintenance and management, $480,000
o Priority Facility repairs, $400,000
o Upper Bear Canyon trail Maintenace and restoration, $290,000

Land and Water Restoration:
o Fish passage project (East Boulder Ditch), $250,000
o Lower Boulder Creek habitat restoration, $266,750

Transportation:
- Pavement management program, $4,775,000
- Fourmile Canyon Creek multi-use under path at 19th Street, $1,752,000,
- Intersection safety projects, $302,880,
- Mesa Elementary Safe Routes to School, $342,000

Parks & Recreation
- General park improvements, $900K
- Urban forest management,$500k
- Parks and Recreation Master Plan, $200k
- Flatirons Golf Course Facility, $6.4M

That last one was v damaged in the 2013 flooding. Councilman Wallach asked why so much $$ was being spent on the golf course.

Water/wastewater/storm and flood CIP:
- 63rd Water Treatment Plant Upgrades, $2.0M (Design)
- Barker Gravity Pipeline Repair, $3.78M (Annual Construction Cost for 12-year Program)
- Large Sewer Pipe Replacement, $4.6 M (Design)
- Water Resources Recovery Facility Upgrades $4.6M

- East Pearl Storm Sewer Improvements, $3.9M (Construction)
- South Boulder Creek Flood Mitigation, $1.0M (Design - That total project, of course, will cost ~$66M or more, but that's just the 2021 CIP spending)

That's probably a lot more info than you might have wanted, but since I didn't get to this before publishing this weekend, I thought you'd appreciate it. Will def take a look before my updated budget story.

You know what it's time for? Fun facts!

Boulder's 3 water utilities have a combined $170B of infrastructure, some of it 100 years old (which is why our rates are going up so much, bc we need to replace a lot of it)

More fun facts:
70 unhoused ppl were housed from January to June 2020

199 permanently affordable homes were added in Boulder this year, with 243 anticipated by the end of the year

250 wireless hotspots distributed to low-income families w/o good internet access

And my personal favorite: More people have walked on the moon than have been Boulder Municipal Court administrators.

All of these were found in the 2021 proposed budget. They throw them in to spice up departmental breakdowns (and presumably to forestall mental breakdowns from someone attempting to read all 331 pages of the budget)

OK, back to boring budget stuff: The rental license application fee is going up, from $105 every four years (per unit) to $190.

Apparently the $105 was not covering all the costs of administering the license, so landlords were getting a subsidy.

This will eliminate the $220,000 the city spent on administering that program that were not covered by the fee.

Brannigan recommending that council revisit spending midway through 2021 and, if there's $$, do raises and cancel furlough days.

Crap that was supposed to say Brautigam but my phone changed it. Can't get back on Twitter on my Mac for some reason so the pace of my tweets will slow.

Friend: Did we budget in support for ppl working from home? Printing costs, headphones, reliable internet, etc.?

This reminds me: Boulder canceled a lease on Center Green Drive, where HR was. That saves $1M a year, roughly.

Brautigam: we let ppl take equipment from the office but decided not to pay for internet

Friend: why do we need cops for schools if they're not in physical session?
Chief Maris Herold: They're trying to come back in October so we'd provide that service then.

Brockett: BVSD is looking at eliminating those, so let's be nimble
Brautigam: yes, we're being nimble but in talking to the superintendent, he wants those officers for high schools if they reopen

Friend: I understand that we're contractually obligated to give raises to union police, but it "doesn't feel good" that they're the only group. It's a pandemic and ppl are losing jobs. Let's maybe remember this in future negotiations.

Friend also not stoked to be spending $4-5M on the golf course.
Ali Rhodes: we have a trailer there for restrooms now. It was supposed to be there for 3-5 years; it's been 5. And it will pay for itself in less than 10 years.

Also, the $$ being used for it has a lot of limitations on what it can go to. Basically only replacing or improving facilities.

Rhodes: "We are addressing a deficiency at a facility. "

Brockett: I'm struggling with this, too. "There are parks that are not being built."

Young: is it possible to delay this project and doing parks instead? We should consider who will benefit from the projects.
Rhodes: if we don't do this, the $$ will sit there. We haven't started the process for the parks yet; they're not shovel- ready.

Joseph echoing Young's request to know who is using the golf course vs. who might use the parks.

Wallach: "We need more information."

Friend: Some budget planning was based on estimates of 17% population increase over the next 25 years. Did we take into account that our population declined the last two years?

No one is entirely sure, so Brautigam promises to bring that back.

Young: What does the incident command vehicle (that we didn't buy) do?
Herold: It's for events like an active shooter, etc.
Young: Do we have one now?
Herold: Yes
Young: We should consider sharing this with the region

Herold: It is being considered, but I wouldn't want to be sharing ... if we're all in the same incident, we all need the same vehicle.

"But we have one and I think we're in good shape for the near future."

If I'm remembering correctly, that was a $360,000 vehicle that costs $25,000 annually to maintain.

Young asking about more $$ for rental assistance, food, etc. but I wasn't able to pull a coherent, concise answer from Firnhaber's answer.
Young: Will the additional $$ meet demand for help?
Firnhaber: "We can't anticipate that right now."

Some numbers from EFAA: Through Aug. 21, $924,191 distributed for rental assistance, $68,875 to help with utilities and $14,450 in minor medical costs

91% of recipients were families with children

Sarah Huntley answering a Young q about Channel 8 not broadcasting as many meetings. That IS because meetings are on Zoom, which the city recommends continuing. They will be recorded and can be watched online.

So, board and commission meetings will still be recorded, but it will be through Zoom, not Channel 8.

Council will still be broadcast on Channel 8. For boards and commissions, you have to attend through Zoom.

Brockett: Will we still offer Zoom once we resume in-person meetings?
Huntley: Yes, we anticipate ppl will continue to want this. More ppl are participating than before, and new people, too.

Brockett: If we were in-person and ppl joined via Zoom, can they still see who is speaking?
Huntley: We're working to configure council chambers for this hybrid approach.

Young: I noticed in the budget there was going to be a delay in repairing elevators in parking garages — except for the one at the St. Julien parking garage.

Why not that one? This is an accessibility and equity issue.

Yvette Bowden taking this one: We prioritize our infrastructure based on age, utilization and its current state of repair. The St Julien one is very busy and hasn't been repaired in a long time.

Also forgot to mention: In-person attendants are parking garages are being eliminated.

In terms of changes you might actually notice related to budget cuts.

Young: We usually have some $$ for council to allocate where it wants. Do we have that this year?
Brautigam: Not exactly. There's $1M that's not been allocated. Some "small amount" needs to go to school police officers, which I hope you'll approve.

Forgot to say Nagle is attending by phone, not video. So she is here, apparently.

Brockett: Can we get a list of the planning dept positions that aren't being renewed? And what they do?
Brautigam: Yes

Brockett: The water utility has a lot of CIP projects, and they're only ID'd by their name. Idk what those all are. I would like some details.

Me, too! Gotta say, I kind of love reading about flood and water projects.

I wish I knew what to blame that on (absent parents? heavy drinking? multiple concussions?) but I honestly don't know.

Crap I think I missed an important q.
Brockett: It seems in the library, there are lower service levels due to COVID but I assume some of those reductions are not related to the pandemic. Don't we want to reopen branches eventually, for example?

David Farnan, library director: Given the current budget, we don't anticipate opening the George Reynolds branch (on Table Mesa) in 2021.

Brockett: Sure, for 2021, but what's our plan for bringing it back? I worry about these cuts becoming permanent.
Farnan: Our next budget process will start the march. If we know more sooner, we'll plan sooner.

Brockett, quietly pushing for more info, as he always quietly pushes.

I would like to give him some Pushy Journalist training. Not sure he'd be interested, but I'd like to try.

Brautigam on the rental license fee: "The way we have it now, the taxpayers are subsidizing the landlords." In terms of fairness, we thought that wasn't fair. That's why we increased it so much this year. (81%)

Reminder: The $190 (up from $105) is every four years, not every year.

Swetlik: How will NEWR, if it passes, work with the current fee?
Brautigam: It's a new fee (actually a tax) so it's an entirely new thing.

Swetlik: I don't want to leave out transportation. Wants to replace all the median vegetation with native grasses to minimize the amount of median maintenance (which is being cut in this year's budget)

From what I've seen of medians, they look fairly natural. But I don't really look at medians that often.

Interim Transportation Director Bill Cowern: I'm not sure we have the $$ to replace stuff.
Swetlik: Maybe looking forward, for new medians?
Cowern: Sure.

Firnhaber on homeless services: We're probably accomplishing the same amount as before with less $$.

Swetlik: Any opportunity to renegotiate leases for office space? That's one of our biggest expenses?
Brautigam references Center Green, which I already mentioned.

Other properties/facilities are being analyzed, but Center Green is the most expensive.

Joanna Crean, head of facilities: We're looking at how we work and what changes that makes to our office needs.

Nagle, via phone (she's on a biz trip with no computer): We've discussed a lot about lower-income residents. I want to switch over to what we're doing for our businesses.

Water rates are going up; that will impact biz. Are we looking at what fees will impact biz? Do we have any specific numbers?
Bowden: There are no changes to the fee structures at this time.

Bowden: Earlier today, we were told we were doing the right thing by focusing on getting stabilization for small biz. First, we have to continue to stay in line with public health advice.

No immediate plans in terms of relief for fees.

Nagle not happy we don't have acquisition $$ in the OSMP budget and won't be maintaining trails to the level we want. Gets in another dig about paying to kill p dogs rather than maintain things taxpaying residents use.

Wallach asking a q about water rates but I didn't quite understand it. I think it's getting actual $$ amounts rather than % increases before the public hearing.
Joe Taddeucci agrees.

I ... think we're done...?

Wait, Wallach spoke too soon.

Surprisingly no questions from Weaver tonight. That's not like him.

Young: There's a reduction in wildfire spending, but we're likely to have more wildfires.
Fire chief Mike Calderazzo: "The response piece is exactly as it's always been." An admin position was cut.

Young with a comment: That un-delegated $1M at council's discretion, can we have a plan before the public hearing to use that for aid (rent, transportation, utility) rather than put it back into the reserves? I'd rather use it to help community members.

Brautigam: We're thinking of that $$ as an emergency fund, if things got worse with COVID. What you're talking about is part of that: folks have lost their jobs, had financial difficulties as a result of COVID. It's available for that (help) should we need it.

Council thanking staff for this budget. "This is a very hard time," Brockett says.

Wallach: "It's been a difficult year and we're looking at another difficult year. ... This is not the budget we would have wanted but it's the budget we have."

ok NOW we are done.

Weaver did not speak for the entire night, which I have never seen. Any who, @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks!