Fort Collins – Residents are reacting harshly to program cuts that would save about $5 million out of the city’s 2006-07 budget.
The proposed cuts involve closing a youth activity center in 2007, scaling back a citywide bus service for elderly and disabled people, killing plans to hire new police officers and eliminating about 100 city positions. Roughly 37 of those slots are filled.
Also attracting controversy is the city’s bid to raise about $2.6 million through a fee levied against homeowners and businesses for the use of public roads.
Plenty of people are gearing up to lobby the City Council over the budget proposals, Mayor Doug Hutchinson said.
“We are getting an unusually large amount of public feedback over this,” Hutchinson said.
This is the first year Fort Collins has used the “Budgeting for Outcomes” method to create the $475.8 million budget for next year. This approach forces city departments to offer services – such as police protection, street lighting and park maintenance – to the City Council to purchase.
Fort Collins faces growing demands for services while revenue growth remains almost stagnant, Hutchinson said. That means about $5 million that the city had projected it would have for the next fiscal year has to be erased.
The council will make a final decision on the budget in November.
Several groups are pressuring the council to keep targeted programs intact. More than 700 people signed a petition hoping to block a proposal to stop the Dial-A-Ride service after 7 p.m. each day.
Dial-A-Ride provides the only transportation for many disabled and elderly residents in Fort Collins, said Mark Beck, who uses a wheelchair.
“If this item is approved, it will keep a lot of people in their homes from 5:30 p.m. on,” said Beck, a member of the city’s Commission on Disability.
The city’s Human Rights Resource and Education Office is slated to be cut, as is the Youth Activity Center, the only youth facility on the south side of town.
Business leaders are worried about the proposed transportation maintenance fee. Homeowners would be levied $2 a month, while businesses would be charged depending on the amount of traffic they generate.
“A lot of people in the business community are questioning what this is all about,” said David May, president and chief executive of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce.
The fight over the budget is going on while proponents gear up to support a Nov. 1 ballot issue that would fund $56 million in various transportation and building projects in the city. Voters are being asked to extend a quarter-cent sales tax.
Residents will be able to separate the budget-cutting issues and the tax extension when they go to the ballot box, May said.
“Voters here are pretty discriminating.” he said.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
