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Councilors get budget-cutting options
Trims could total $511,000 to fight weak sales-tax collections
Herald Staff Writer
The cuts were initiated by a request by councilors to City Manager Ron LeBlanc to trim $390,000 from LeBlanc's original general-fund budget proposal. The cuts stem from the council's concern that sales-tax revenues will be flat in 2009.
The $511,000 in trims are generated by:
•$390,000 in budgetary cuts requested by councilors to deal with weak sales-tax collections.
•$71,000 in declining revenue for recycling in the Department of Sustainable Services.
•$50,000 in unanticipated spending to continue partial funding of the Mercy Regional Medical Center-sponsored Health Services Clinic.
Councilors got three options for trims from Le Blanc during a study session Monday, but only the third included the full $511,000 because the other two did not include a total elimination of funding for the Health Services Clinic.
In the previous two years, the city and La Plata County each contributed $100,000 to the clinic, which was intended to be temporary, and the clinic funding was not included in the draft budget for 2009.
The $50,000 addition was a compromise requested by councilors, who didn't want to remove all the clinic's funding at once.
"It's a community priority ... and we're getting a pretty good bang for the buck from it," Councilor Doug Lyon said, referring to the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 annual visits the clinic receives.
Other cuts proposed under the option preferred by at least three of the five councilors include:
•Community events and the Durango Heritage Weekend will be funded at $2,000 instead of $15,000 as originally proposed.
•Durango Community Access Television will receive $37,000 instead of $57,000, and CitySpan 10 Government Access Television funding will be reduced by $10,000.
•The Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency, or 4CORE, will receive $51,500 instead of the proposed $65,000.
•Capital projects will be trimmed by $220,000 - including the delay of construction of a storm drain in the Crestview neighborhood ($120,000 in savings), postponement of the design phase of a new recycling center ($50,000 in savings) and the funding of $50,000 instead of $100,000 for affordable housing to the Regional Housing Alliance of La Plata County.
•A reduction of 2009 funding in the amount of $150,000 for a rewrite of the city's Land Use and Development Code. The land-use rewrite will cost about $300,000 over a 15- to 18-month period, and the 2009 savings are a delay, not elimination, of that funding.
•The city will no longer purchase Green Power blocks from La Plata Electric Association saving $45,000.
•Miscellaneous departmental cuts from 22 city offices would total $93,500.
Councilors also decided Monday to continue to study city funding for the La Plata County Humane Society, and they likely will recommend an increase in licensing and spaying and neutering fees to raise the $14,000 requested by the Humane Society board of directors in the 2009 budget.
In addition, the Durango Transit Trolley likely will be free beginning in 2009, and parking will be free Saturdays year-round. To offset the approximately $65,000 lost in fare-box revenue, parking tickets will be increased from $6 to $9.
LeBlanc originally recommended parking tickets be increased to $12, but the proposal was met with resistance from several local business organizations concerned the proposed doubling of fees would deter shoppers from frequenting downtown businesses.
LeBlanc said after working with Roy Petersen, the director of General Services, the two men agreed that $9 parking tickets, combined with an increase from the city's lodgers tax, would cover the lost revenue from a free trolley.
City councilors will hold a public hearing on the 2009 budget at a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 in Council Chambers at Durango City Hall, 949 East Second Ave.
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