Thread by @shayshinecastle

Hey, Boulder! It's been a while, but it's budget time and I'm back to live-tweet a city council meeting to you.

Starting in 15, we'll be discussing the city's $513.5M spending plan for 2023. documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

No decisions or public input tonight — that's scheduled for Oct. 6 and Oct. 20. Mark your calendars!

Like I said, this is a $513.5 million total budget
- Operating budget: $354.2 million
- Capital budget: $159.3 million

1,540.09 FTE
- 48.38 FTE more than last year
- 65 FTE more than pre-pandemic staffing (2020)

FTE = Full-time employees

You're going to see a lot of comparisons to not only last year's budget, but 2019's as well. That's because the pandemic pretty drastically altered the budget for at least 1 year, and arguably more.

So it's helpful to compare year-over-year and pre-pandemic to now.

You're gonna want to follow along with the staff presentation. Here it is again, for ease: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

There's a lot of boring text, but also some good visuals for understanding where your $$ is going.

We'll get into the details later. For now, some highlights on what's included in this budget:
- An extra $2M for fire response, including wildfire mitigation (although most $$ is actually to add firefighters and bring more emergency services in-house)

$1.7M for homelessness and/or mental health response, including
- $750K for day shelter operations (they still don't have a location yet, so that's not happening immediately, but it's being budgeted for)
- $950K for non-police response to mental health crises

$1.3M to extend the encampment removal pilot program (You know, the one that actually isn't reducing the number of encampments)

boulderbeat.news/2022/06/11/hom…

The new $$ is for the ambassador program (story below), urban park rangers and more people and equipment for encampment removals. In addition to existing spending for the dedicated police unit for encampment removals. boulderbeat.news/2022/06/18/bou…

Other budget highlights include
- $250K for ranked-choice voting
- A fully funded reserve for the general fund: the city's 20% goal, which it has been working toward for a bit, will finally be met this year

Also should note that the city changed the way it budgeted, at least for Housing and Human Services.

The city does its base budget each year, but they usually add $$ to that base, approved budget subsequently, as revenue comes in. These are called "adjustments to base."

HHS particularly has a lot of these — "Approx. $15 million reflects as new in budget due to new method of budgeting to better reflect actual expenditures”

So that budget looks quite a bit higher, as does the budget overall, bc we're counting $$ now that won't be added to later, and in past years wasn't included in the base budget.

Aqui

That's one reason this budget is bigger, NRV says. The other is that it actually IS bigger — sales tax is up, so we're bringing in more $$ than we have been the past couple (COVID) years.

Getting a little Budget 101 from Kara Skinner.
The city has 24 special funds (this is $$ dedicated to specific things like parks & rec, affordable housing, etc.)

The General Fund pays for everything that's not paid for from a dedicated fund. It's the biggest part of the budget: 45%, and the part over which council has control (because it's discretionary and not legally mandated to be spent on certain things)

The General Fund for 2023 is $188M

This is the first budget cycle we've gotten specific info on how Boulder spends on its goals of Sustainability, Equity and Resilience.

Boulder has had these goals since 2013, but they didn't really do much with them.

Also, goals is probably not the right word. They feel like values. But either way, this is the first time they've categorized spending in that way.

You can view these categories and spending on slides 51-58 of the staff presentation: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

The values are things like: Safe city! Livable city! Sustainable city! with expenditures like $17.8M for patrol police officers (Safe), $29M for affordable housing (Livable) and $377K for wildfire mitigation on open space (Sustainable)

2023 is also the debut of Open Gov, the new online software that displays budget info. It's clickable and searchable by department.

Highly recommend playing around with this if you want to learn how the city spends your $$
stories.opengov.com/cityofboulderc…

Both of these changes will help Boulder track if its spending is actually making progress on its goals, senior budget manager Mark Woulf says

About damn time

Going back to recovering sales tax: Boulder has been using CU forecasting to develop a conservative budget. And it has been collecting more $$ than it planned for at least for the past couple of years, in part bc they are being cautious in their planning.

From Woulf: The city of Boulder's property and liability insurance premiums went up by about $1M per year. That's due to natural disasters, local police settlements (story below) and the "national climate" around policing, Woulf says. boulderbeat.news/2022/07/15/pol…

Council member: Hey, where did this $$ go?
City staff: We spent it buying land so people wouldn't build housing there.

This is an evergreen tweet.

Speer: You said these new processes would help us determine if our $$ is helping us achieve our goals, and if not, we can shift spending around. How are we going to determine if goals are being met or not?

Woulf: We have a data team. We're working to develop indicators over the next 18-24 months.

"It will be iterative and it won't be perfect, but hopefully next year you start to see some of those indicators alongside community goals and intended outcomes."

Skinner: Our total budget is 11% bigger than last year's. Our revenue didn't increase by that much, but we are spending some leftover $$ from last year on priority projects and pilot programs (more details is promised later).

OK, best slide to see where our $$ goes, slide 28

A little hard to see, but those same graphs are here: stories.opengov.com/cityofboulderc…

Another great visual.. how much our spending has increased — when adjusted for inflation.

"Our 2023 budget is still not keeping up with inflation" compared to pre-pandemic spending, Skinner says

So it's bigger (by quite a bit) in real $$, but when you factor in inflation, we're spending less (because everything costs more)

Where does our general fund $$ go? An important topic bc all other $$ is restricted to certain purposes

OHHH I totally forgot this in the budget highlights, but it includes $$ to run the new North Boulder library, which they anticipate will open midway through 2023.

General fund's operating budget is 7.3% higher than last year's

That's important, bc some general fund spending is just one-time, for projects and such

So what you really want to look at when you look at Boulder's budget is
1.) General fund (only discretionary $$)
2.) Operating budgets (for the total budget and the general fund)

3.) Full-time employees

If you know nothing else, know that.

Speer: Why didn't we add any staff to climate initiatives? That's the No. 1 priority for more than a third of people in our community. (according to a recent survey)

Woulf: We are not budgeting for the climate tax on this fall's ballot. If that passes, we will add that $$ in.

Another budget highlight I missed: $$ to make permanent a very successful community court program that keeps unhoused people out of jail for offenses related to being homeless (tent and camping ban tickets, etc.) and instead moves them toward housing

The Fire Station 3 relocation budget is going up again — this time because of inflation.

This has to be one of the worst-budgeted for projects I've ever seen. The original budget was $12.5M. We were at $32M last time I checked.

This is a capital project, so we're in a separate part of the budget now.

This year's capital budget is $159.3 million — less than last year, but that's bc we had a couple huge utility projects.

Not as big a deal, but a tiny new expenditure is new microphones and cameras for council, as meetings will stay hybrid for the foreseeable future.

You, my friend, can return to council meetings starting with the Oct. 6 budget public hearing!

Also, RE: Fire station No. 3 bc I get some shit for criticizing the budgeting for this. Obviously we need it: Old station was in a high-hazard flood zone, which means we couldn't add onto or rebuild it.

My comments are purely about the budgeting.

And even that I understand! Real estate is expensive! Inflation is real! But GD that estimate was Waaaaay off.

Wallach with his signature snark: We've got $20M in stuff we want to do but don't have $$ for. What is our plan, that God will provide?

Woulf: We have a slightly more specific plan

Basically: More details to come

This year's budget also includes $1.1M in new $$ for parks + rec — specifically for staffing so that those facilities (like pools) can stay fully open.

Of course, that's no guarantee they will be able to hire folks, but the $$ is there.

City council has until Sept. 23 to get in their suggestions for changes to this budget. We'll learn what those are Oct. 6 — the first public hearing.

Final public hearing is Oct. 20, and the budget gets adopted by Dec. 1

But of course, we may get some suggestions tonight from council.

Friend: Did our community connectors review this budget?
No, staff confirms.

Community connectors are the folks who work to engage with historically under-represented groups.

"It's not completely absent, but certainly in the budget itself, we know there's room for continual improvement," Woulf says.

The city is starting a 3-year process to overhaul the budget in terms of equity and transparency. So that could be added in; it's not been done before.

Sarah Huntley, engagement manager: We can get that feedback in the next couple of weeks, if you're interested.

Yes, Friend says. "That input, it's so valuable."

NRV: "I want to make sure we're thinking about that for next year as well." Some feedback is already in there at the department level, but it's great to keep working on.

Woulf giving a good explanation of what I was tweeting about earlier, the changes in how we budget for affordable housing.

That money comes from development (via our fees) so we don't always know when it's coming in/how much it will be.

SO... the old way of doing things was not to budget for it in the base, initial budget. They add it in as they get it each year.

HOWEVER... this $$ *is* kind of predictable, bc they know what projects are in process and roughly how much $$ they will pay in fees.

SO now they are looking ahead at the upcoming projects and saying, "We should get XX amount from X,Y,Z projects" and putting that in the initial budget.

Anyway, back to council suggestions.

Nothing super specific (yet) but a majority of council wants, in addition to the $$ being spent on removing camps and trash, they'd like to see additional $$ in measures that would prevent some of those impacts — like trash cans, bathrooms.

Speer: I love to see the $$ for the community court / diversion program. But this is very intensive, bc police are writing tickets, which folks talk to the court, who then connects them to services.

Can we cut out the middlemen? And connect folks to services?

Also wants more $$ for basic needs assistance (human services).

"Investing now will pay dividends," Speer says. We can pay a little now to help "families and folks who are struggling" or we can pay more later.

"I'm not really excited about getting another encampment cleanup team for $500K," Speer says. This was a pilot. The intent was to reduce camping. That didn't happen."Why are we investing almost half a million dollars in a program that has not had the success we were looking for?"

Winer: This budget captured council's priorities and the communities priorities, and particularly the fact that the community has different and sometimes conflicting priorities within itself.

"For me, litter used to be one of our big priorities in Boulder. I would like it to become one again," Winer says. "I'm not even saying who is making the litter," but the cleanup teams can help with that regardless of where it comes from.

Ali Rhodes, of Parks + Rec: We are spending a significant amount of $$ on vandalism. That's happening across the country — "people are angry, and they're taking it out on the parks and restrooms."

I think that was in response to a Winer suggestion.

Winer: "I do hope we keep this budget close" to what staff suggests, bc there's a little bit for everybody. Not everybody will be completely happy, but a lot of ppl will be a little happy.

Joseph: I appreciate the suggestion to include community connectors now, but it also makes me uncomfortable. A lot of times, marginalized people aren't invited until the end of a process. And you're essentially checking a box.

We need to do better.

Budget highlight I missed: This is the first year Boulder is paying for legal aid for immigrants. (They are explicitly excluded from receiving federal legal aid, or at least were in the past.)

Closing statement will go to Yates: Only 15% of our budget comes from property tax; 45% comes from sales tax. This is so troubling to me. "It's live by the sword, die by the sword" — every time the economy dips, so does our budget. Sales tax "turn off like that."

This isn't something we solve in the yearly budget cycle, but I hope it's something we can change over time so we don't have to cut services.

This is a problem Boulder has been discussing for at least the last few years, because our population is shrinking and also aging — both reduce sales tax revenue.

And, yes, tourism does contribute a lot of sales tax $$, but the majority of our sales tax is paid by residents.

I mean, have you ever looked at a tourism-based economy? Not great.

Obviously Boulder is a long way from that, but if the population gets too old / too small, the thriving biz that keep our economy diverse might go elsewhere.

And with that cheerful thought, we're done!

Thanks for having me back. It felt like visiting old friends.

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