City council okays 2022 budget

City council Tuesday night approved Longmont’s $391 million budget for 2022, which includes funding for 31 new positions.

No one from the public spoke about the budget during a public hearing which passed unanimously by the council. 

The total budget of $391,770,717 is roughly 5% more than the 2021 budget of $372.94 million,  according to city staff reports.

Besides adding more employees, the budget also includes $500,000 of one-time funding for early childhood education, $100,000 of one-time funding for an Envision Longmont update and $560,816 of increased ongoing funding for human service needs, the report states. 

A good portion of the human service funding will go toward “Longmont’s most vulnerable residents, as well as close the housing resource gap for persons experiencing homelessness,” the report states.

Additional staff members added under the budget include two park rangers, a bilingual coordinator for the library and a counselor for senior services, according to a staff report.