Longmont’s 2024 budget will likely be constrained by ongoing inflationary pressures.
Longmont City Council had their first budget discussion for 2024 during a workshop Tuesday. The budget will not be adopted until the end of October, but staff is currently preparing budget requests as the major process begins.
Longmont has a $48.4 million general fund balance, which is $6.4 million greater than the end of 2021. Of that, $2.5 million went to emergency reserves.
Chief Financial Officer Jim Golden said last year, sales tax — a major source of revenue for the city — came in $4.26 million more than budgeted. Last year’s sales and use tax ended up increasing 9.4% over 2021, but Golden is more pessimistic about this year’s growth.
Sales and use tax performance is lagging behind in the first three months of the year, he noted.
“It’s only been two months so it's hard to get at real trends,” Golden said.
When it comes to capital improvement projects, City Manager Harold Dominguez explained that the city’s ongoing issues with over budget projects due to skyhigh inflation meant he directed staff to keep the focus on current projects rather than new requests.
“We need to finish things, we need to deal with what’s over budget and there doesn’t really need to be any new (capital improvement) projects added this year so we can catch up and finish what we need to finish,” Dominguez said.
He noted that the city is looking at funding gaps for city priorities, including the First and Main Transit Stations and Vision Zero work, which the council recently approved moving forward with. Dominguez said he also wants to continue prioritizing compensation and benefits to ensure retention and recruitment of city staff in 2024.
He expects any extra funds the city currently has will be committed to cover the costs of these capital projects and staffing priorities.
Staff will continue working on the budget, with a proposal to come to the council by Sept. 1.
