City budget reflects cuts in workforce

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Parks will be less appealing, libraries open fewer hours and police response to nonemergency calls slower as a result of the 2006-2007 proposed Fort Collins budget.

There may yet be some tinkering to maintain Dial-A-Ride evening transit service, restore a bicycle coordinator position and continue neighborhood street sweeping before the city council formally adopts the budget on Nov. 15. But the final numbers should change little.

The nearly $98.8 million in expected 2006 general fund revenues represents a 4.5 percent increase over those budgeted for this year. Revenues in 2007 are expected to just break the $100 million mark, representing a 1.3 percent increase over the 2006 budget.

Those numbers are built on the assumption that sales- and use-tax revenues will grow by 4 percent next year and 4.5 percent the following one. Those consumption taxes generate 60 percent of the revenues to the general fund. It reflects most of the public services provided by the city other than utilities.

Some skeptics assail those estimates as foolishly optimistic given the expected leakage of sales tax dollars to Loveland with the opening of the Centerra shopping center. But Mayor Doug Hutchinson has confidence in those estimates that have historically proven solid. "I think we have a very accurate prediction," he said.

Even with those anticipated revenue gains, painful cuts were required this year to keep future budgets in balance. That surgery was accomplished through an elaborate, jargon-laced Budgeting for Outcomes process that almost totally consumed the council and city staff for months.

The system essentially requires the city to precisely determine its priorities and forces employees to respond directly to those demands. It started in the spring when the city council developed seven broad "results," or areas in which they believed citizens most wanted to see the city spend the funds available. A dollar amount then was attached to each result.

A "results team" of city staffers was assigned to each result to develop guidelines for "offers" to accomplish those goals. Those guidelines were then translated into "requests for results." Offers submitted by "service providers" or "sellers" - a mix of departments, work teams or partnerships - were reviewed by the results teams and ranked by priority into a "drilling platform." Those priority lists of programs that could be funded with the dollars available, and those that could not, were forwarded to the city manager. The manager then developed a recommended budget for the city council's consideration.

Hutchinson, who in large part based his election campaign on adopting the budget process to streamline city government, not surprisingly considers the effort a great success.

"I think it's a super system," he said. "The whole council is saying this is really a good system."

While the typical budget process is based on what was spent the year before, Hutchinson said, Budgeting for Outcomes compelled the city to start from scratch and justify how every dollar is spent.

"Now we're focusing our resources on what we need to do," he said. "Before, we focused on spending money rather than providing services."

As it was intended, however, the budgeting process had the unfortunate effect of eliminating a number of lower-priority services that didn't make the cut.

Parks took some of the most visible hits with elimination of the scheduling coordinator, and reductions in the seasonal workforce, the frequency of trash collection, the number of flowerbeds across the city, and overall parks maintenance.

Operations at both libraries will be reduced by four hours a week.

Additional police officers will not be hired in the next two years, increasing officer response time and eliminating responses in some cases.

The Youth Activities Center will be closed in 2007 with services instead provided at the new Northside Aztlan Recreation Center.

Accompanying those service reductions were staff cuts affecting 106 of the city's nearly 1,200 full-time positions. Figures are still in flux, but 37 employees now are facing layoffs and five could have their hours reduced. The remaining 64 positions represent current vacancies that will not be filled.

But those remaining will be eligible for raises for the first time since employee salaries were frozen three years ago. Most employees will receive a 1.9 percent cost of living increase in 2006 and a 2.3 percent increase the following year. Some 750 employees also will be eligible for merit increases of up to 4 percent based on the quality of their performance.

Estimated to cost $4 million in 2006 and an additional equal amount in 2007, Hutchinson said the cost is justified to retain quality employees who increasingly are leaving.

"If we didn't do this, we might see a further exodus," he said. "We have a world-class city. We're in jeopardy of losing that because we have a workforce that is paid below the market."