City councilors Tuesday night got their first look at the proposed 2023 budget which includes $414.25 million for operations. Next year’s operating budget — which includes all city funds — is $22.48 million more than this year’s outlay, a 5.74% increase and is also balanced.
But inflation is stretching the city’s ledger and hampering efforts to meet project goals. City officials told councilors that materials from fire hydrants to electric transformers all cost more than last year.
The Coffman Street busway improvement project — a top city priority — has gone up from $6 million to $8.2 million, City Manager Harold Dominguez said. “We’ve worked hard to get that funded,” Dominguez said. “The cost has increased significantly.”
“We are facing that with every capital improvement project … how do we keep it on schedule and come up with the necessary funding,” he said.
The city is also straining to find enough money to attract and keep top employees, Dominguez said. Some cities are ahead of Longmont in providing perks to attract good people.
Top applicants for slots in the police department, for instance, are often lured away by other jurisdictions because Longmont does not allow officers to take their police vehicles home with them, Dominguez said.
The proposed budget calls for spending $1.47 million to start a pilot program to let officers take their vehicles home, Dominguez said.
Some of that money will come from a proposed 2023 general fund budget of $109 million, an increase of $6.84 billion from this year’s budget, city officials told the council.
The proposed budget also includes 4% pay increases for most police officers and 4% for fire personnel.
More details of the budget will be presented to the city council in September and public hearings are scheduled for Sept. 27 and Oct.4. The budget adoption is scheduled for a first reading on October 11 with a second reading on Oct. 25.
Councilor Tim Waters, meanwhile, blasted the council for not establishing budgetary goals for 2023 and beyond. Waters noted that the proposed budget mirrors off of a work plan set by the council 2020.
"I think it's a failure on our part as a council to have not spent one hour, much less one day, in a conversation about what our priorities are," Waters said. "What organization would set goals that we never looked at in two years, much less revise and update based on data?"
Mayor Joan Peck said Waters and other councilors can put a goal-setting item on a council agenda. "Anybody on this Council, if you woudl like to discuss something bring it forward," Peck said.
