Thread by @shayshinecastle

Alright, the main event: The 2022 budget. Staff presentation: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

This spending plan — $100M more than 2021's — is “cautiously optimistic about improving conditions,” NRV wrote in the beginning of the budget.

“Many revenue sources are trending up, including retail sales tax, which is forecast to reach a level that is a modest increase from pre-pandemic levels. The sales and use tax increase is due, in part, to receiving tax revenue from online marketplace retail sales.”

"This budget is a testament to the city's resilience," NRV says. It includes ARPA $$ and includes a lot of $$ for service restoration.

Racial equity was considered in the budget, NRV says. Dept had to answer the qs of who would benefit from restored service and who would be harmed if services didn't come back.

Pro tip: The helped/harmed is a really good way to assess divisive topics. Ask yourself who benefits (from the status quo and suggested change) and who is harmed, which often explains opposition to things.

The budget also includes merit raises, which were cancelled in 2021 due to COVID.

"As our local economy continues to grow, we too hope to grow stronger," NRV says. The budget is "forward looking but measured."

$462,518,802 total budget
- Operating: $300,093,670
- Capital: $162,425,132

$300.1M Operating budget
- General fund: $134,145,347 (44.7%)
- Dedicated funds: $169,948,323 (56.6%)

$162.4 Capital budget
- Gov’t capital fund: $11,986,176 (7.38%)
- Dedicated funds: $150,438,956 (92.6%)

69.3% of the overall budget is dedicated

1,460.71 Full Time Employees
- vs 1,402.2 in 2021

34 FTE - restoration of city services
- 10.25 to library/arts
- 7.5 to planning & development
- 7.25 to parks & rec
- 2.5 to police
- 2 to tech
- 1 each to finance, communications, climate initiatives, city manager/clerk
- 0.5 to HHS

42.5 new FTE
- 10 to utilities
- 4.25 to planning & development
- 4 to OSMP
- 4 to fire rescue
- 3.5 to HHS
- 3 to communications
- 3 to facilities and fleet
- 2.25 to climate initiatives
- 2 to HR
- 1.5 to tech

And 1 each to city manager/clerk, transportation, parks & rec, finance, community vitality

First: A quick economic outlook from Rich Wobbekind at CU.

"We obviously have a more positive economic environment, but we're still concerned."

"We're still 5M lower in employment (nationally) than we were when we went into this," Wobbkend says. "The q is are ppl going to come back and take these jobs at the end of the day. We've had substantial retirements."

Not exactly the same as the last crisis (2008) bc house prices have continued to appreciate, stock portfolios are doing well. So older folks might not return to the workforce as they did in 2010.

Unlike earlier in the pandemic, Boulder County's economy has recovered quite well (when it comes to jobs)

Remember, at the beginning, we were faring really poorly. We're doing well now, Wobbekind says, primarily due to gov't employment (federal labs, CU, etc.)

Boulderites specifically have higher unemployment than pre-pandemic levels (it was *super* low) but things are getting better, Wobbekind says.

"We have a v tight labor force," Wobbekind says. "We have restaurants that can't open for full shifts ... bc they can't find workers." Students have helped with that quite a bit.

CU's Robert McNown on Colorado sales tax: "By the end of the year, we should have a full recovery."

Boulder's sales tax in June 2021 was 3.3% higher than at that point in 2019 (pre-pandemic) which is nice. But other cities were up in the high double digits (Longmont: 31.4%, CO Springs: 25.4%, Greeley and FoCo both in the teens)

Restaurant sales, however, aren't projected to recover until 2024 in Boulder.

"I find that pretty discouraging," McNown says.

Yates: Is that part of a national trend? Why do you think it will take that long?

McNown: "It's bc the falloff in 2020 was so dramatic. Almost a 45-48% decline in sales tax revenues from restaurants and bars. The trough was so deep that it's going to take awhile to get back."

"Nationally, the recovery is going to be a little quicker," McNown says. "The depths of the restaurant recession were not as severe in other places as they were in Boulder."

Wallach: How much might the Delta variant impact things?
McNown: "That's beyond my modeling capabilities. It really relies on historic data. We don't have a track record on anything like the Delta variant."

"There could be another variant along the way that could be even more severe," McNown says.

Wobbekind: Delta brought down GDP by about a half-percent, but we don't really know about the next variant.

Swetlik: You had a slide about income gains. Where were most of those made? (Which demographics)

Wobbekind: For the high-income industries, it's fully recovered. For the middle-income industries, it's close. For the low-income industries, it's still down 7% or so.

Low-income workers have gotten reasonably good gains in wages last year, Wobbekind says. Colorado's avg. wage went up 6.6% in the last year.

But overall, this pandemic "has made income inequality in this country worse, not better."

Wobbekind: "It's been described as the K recession bc of the dif between high income (groups) and lower income."

On that depressing note... moving back to the city's 2022 budget.

Sales and use tax
$141M projected
- 48% of city revenue (excluding utilities)
- 30% of city revenue (w/utilities)
- 43% of general fund revenues

For every $1 of sales tax in Boulder
- 42c to city of Boulder
- 34c to Colorado
- 13c to RTD/Cultural district
- 11c Boulder County

Why do we exclude utilities from so many data sets on the budget? Bc it basically pays for itself through charges for services. Your water bills are the revenue for utilities, and they use that $$ to operate the dept.

Whereas other dept run off fees and taxes, so it's more accurate to say the city is spending $$ on them.

Anyway, back to sales tax.
Every $1 collected, 42 cents given to Boulder
- 21c to general fund
- 9c to open space
- 9c to transportation
- 3c to parks & rec

Property Tax
Every $100,000 of home value = $85.66 to city of Boulder
Every $100,000 of commercial value = $347.50 to city of Boulder

For every $1 of property tax collected in Boulder
- 57c to schools
- 27c to Boulder County
- 14c to city of Boulder
- 2c to special districts

Of the 14c given to Boulder
- 9c to general fund
- 2c to public safety (general fund)
- 1c to parks & rec
- 1c to community housing assistance program
- <1c to library

Citywide revenues (excluding utilities)
- 48% sales + use tax
- 18% property tax
- 12% other (interest, investments, fines, etc.)
- 11% other taxes
- 6% charges for services
- 5% intergovernmental revenues

General fund revenues
- 43% sales + use tax
- 25% property tax
- 15% other taxes
- 7% cost allocation/transfer
- 7% other
- 3% charges for services

History of general fund revenue
2019: $158,651,344
2020: $148,112,727
2021: $157,485,934
2022: $166,602,128

So up 1.6% from pre-pandemic

Reminder: The general fund pays for, like, a lot. All basic operating functions, police, fire, library, etc. It's super important.

I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers at ya. Here come some more: Where the city's $$ goes (which dept)

Excluding utilities, citywide spending:
14% transportation - $41,851,487
14% police - $40,486,348
11% OSMP - $30,990,582
10% internal services - $28,690,975
10% parks & rec - $28,189,667
8% fire dept - $23,420,511
8% HHS - $22,489,063
5% planning and development - $14,203,911

5% general governance - $13,862,456
4% community vitality - $12,991,653
4% library and arts - $11,971,107
4% facilities and fleet - $10,580,506
2% climate initiatives - $6,373,015
1% municipal court - $2,219,372

Zooming in on the general fund, spending:
25% police - $40,342,484
17% internal services - $28,140,114
14% fire dept - $22,481,169
12% transfers out - $20,263,007
8% general governance - $13,862,456
6% HHS - $9,439,898
6% library and arts - $9,328,994

3% facilities and fleet - $5,211,380
3% parks & rec - $4,990,873
2% climate initiatives - $3,813,778
2% community vitality - $3,191,830
1% municipal court - $2,219,372
1% planning and development - $846,514
<1% transportation - $526,250

Some acronym definitions
OSMP = Open Space & Mountain Parks
HHS = Housing and Human Services

OK, that's all the notes I'm gonna share. I'll have more details in my story, plus comparisons to past years. I'll prob do a 2019-2022 comparison, given the pandemic's impacts on spending. It will better show trends over time.

Actually, I have a bunch of fun facts from the budget document. Ya'll want some fun facts????

How about a link to the budget first. That's fun. bouldercolorado.gov/media/5347/dow…

OK, 2 ppl liked my tweet about fun facts, so I'll share 2 facts.

49,000 speeding tickets (10-19 miles over) have been filed in Boulder since 2010 (the most common violation) and 11,000 expired plates tickets (second most common)

The city’s new website has 2,400 fewer webpages (-68%) and 3,800 fewer PDFs (-70%) than the old city website

"Fun" may be subjective.

Yates: Why are we taking so much debt next year, compared to what we historically do?
CFO Cheryl Pattelli: We have some large dollar amount projects. $92M we're bonding next year.

It's 7 dif projects, according to Chris Douville from utilities

"These needs are real and our backlog is significant," he says.

Mark Woulf is gonna talk about what services Boulder is restoring with this budget.

I went over employee restorations earlier. This will be services specifically.

A total of $9.4M in the budget is to restore services. Things like operation of all the library branches, outreach to underserved communities, HOP bus service, parks and rec offerings, etc.

Oh, and quite a lot of staff to planning so ppl/biz can get permits more quickly.

$8.175M is for "service enhancements" — new shit

That includes hiring an equity liaison, add'l $$ for police oversight, a full-time language access person (for translation services), biz support and advanced EMS in the fire dept.

Quite a bit in the HHS area, including a pilot program to help affordable home-owners with special assessments. Like when they replace roofs or something; it can cost thousands, and ppl have been foreclosed on for not being able to pay.

At least one owner lost their home for this reason that I've seen in city council notes. (They get notified anytime an affordable home is foreclosed on.)

Other "enhancement" spending includes snow removal in the transportation dept, digitizing some records in the planning dept and other customer service stuff.

Next up is the Capital Improvement Program.
CIP projects are major projects for the purchase, construction or replacement of *physical* assets (roads, bridges, buildings, etc.)

The city plans this in 6-yr chunks. So 2022-2027

"The majority of the CIP is maintenance and enhancement," says Kara Skinner — 93%. In other words: Taking care of what we have, not doing new stuff.

LOTS of utilities projects.

Honestly a lot of good info in the presentation that's too much to tweet (I haven't taken notes on that part of the budget yet). Here's that link again. documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Yates: The middle income down payment program has been on hold bc of the pandemic. Can we pick it back up next year? Do we need more $$?

Crap, I missed the answer. But there were funds already available to start that, and they're still there. boulderbeat.news/2019/02/23/bou…

Swetlik asking some qs about dept budget increases. Here's a good look at those.

Those are from 2021, which (reminder) had pretty dramatic cuts across the board bc of the pandemic. I'll do a 2019-2022 comparison so the real trends are evident.

Carey Weinheimer explaining the police spending increase. It's a restoration of 8 officers, he says.

Swetlik: Are there any city dept that won't be spending their entire budget allocation this year?

When projects aren't completed or $$ not spent, it rolls over to the next year.

CFO Cheryl Pattelli: "I wouldn't say that we know of any substantial amounts that dept aren't spending."

But many dept have vacancies — particularly police. "So there will be prob a substantial amount of savings related to that," Pattelli says.

Ali Rhodes of parks & rec: The recreation activity fund will not spend to budget, but it hasn't collected all revenues. (Rec centers closed during pandemic, and only slowly returning to normal)

Wallach: Are there any specific metrics you use to analyze whether programs are continuing their weight?
NRV: As we think about that, data is truly important. We really do need to invest in some data systems that can look at impact.

"We're at the beginning of that journey," NRV says.

Wallach: We're adding back 58 FTE. Didn't we lay off more than that? How close does that get us back to normal?
NRV: "This is a path to getting back to normal." We've brought back staff that were critical.

"We're not completely there yet in restoration," NRV says. But this fits with the revenue projects we have.

Wallach: 90% of the service restoration $$ for library and arts went to library. Why did arts get so little?

NRV: There is some $$ in this budget for arts. We've also got ARPA $$.
David Farnan, head of library/arts: Council kept some funding for grants. This budget fully restores that programming. We're 95-98% toward full restoration.

Farnan: The library budget cuts were more severe. We're 70-75% back toward full restoration there.

Young: What does the planning board budget/staff increase look like IRL?
Jacob Lindsey: This gets us mostly restored, but we've also changed a lot of the way we do things bc of the pandemic.

March of next year, we should be fully staffed, Lindsey says. That's when we'll re-evaluate our service metrics.

"We lost more staff than we requested. We requested what our fund and the general fund can pay for."

Equity manager Aimee Kane answering qs. Part of the plan for integrating racial equity is to embed equity managers into each dept, so that it's not just one person trying to create change.

That's to implement goals/project laid out in the racial equity plan, which Boulder adopted last year. (This year?) I don't remember. But recently.

Friends: Have we adequately funded the community connectors program (for underserved populations)?

For the near future, yes, says Ryan Hanschen (also of the equity/engagement team)

Totally forgot we had a public hearing tonight. 4 ppl.

Riley Mancuso objects to how much the city is spending on police. It is the single biggest source of spending for the general fund (25%) and tied for the biggest source of spending citywide (14%, along with transportation).

That's excluding utilities, which of course we already talked about.

Jan Burton: "This is a big budget." Concerns that we're adding too many staff, not enough $$ for arts/libraries, which are the most "important social infrastructure" in the city.

"Your willingness to add housing will be the most effective way to improve diversity, equity and inclusion," Burton says.

Andrew McKenna, managing partner for Journeys Aviation, which operates out of the airport, advocating for support of the airport. A small but persistent group of residents (and Wallach) wants to turn it into housing.

A pitiful public hearing turnout, but I take responsibility since I haven't covered the budget yet. I'll do better, and I expect better for the second reading. You've been warned, #Boulder.

Brockett has no recommended changes to this budget. Says it's a great plan from staff to slowly recover from COVID.

Swetlik: I don't love that we budget for positions that we know we're not going to be able to fill. We should move that $$ "to something else, something we're trying to solve," things that will prevent "a bigger spend in the future."

Also doesn't love that we get "such little public testimony" for spending half a billion dollars.

I'd like to put my pitch in for what the staff used to do: Sitting down with the press before the budget is released to talk over it. Give us time to look through, come up with qs, fact check, etc.

To be fair, the budget was released Sept. 8 and the hearing was tonight, so I had time to do that — if I'd realized the budget had been released, which I v much did not. Don't recall a press release or anything.

Wallach concurs with Swetlik RE: public education on the budget. "It's not exciting, but it's the most consequential thing we're going to deal with this year."

Also wants to see reserves back up to 20%, as do Nagle and Friend.

Weaver: We're at a way better place than in 2000, when we had 5% reserves. It will come in handy some day when we have a big event like the 2013 flood.

"We need to also balance that with making sure we are adequately funding the needs of our community," Weaver says, "and putting that $$ toward services that we need."

First reading of the budget passes. Second reading and another public hearing Oct. 19. I'll see you there, #Boulder, bc I know you all care about where your tax $$ goes!

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!