Aurora – A plan to tax new homeowners $25 a month for 10 years needs more discussion before being sent to voters for approval, the City Council decided Monday night.
The proposed excise tax would generate about $3,000 per home to cover the costs of providing city services to new developments, but council members said they need more information from city staff before they consider the matter further.
The tax was the recommendation of a revenue study that shows the city is facing a multimillion-dollar budget gap. If approved by voters, the tax would provide the city revenue until retail businesses could be established that would generate the same amount in sales tax revenue, proponents say.
But concerns arose over whether city officials could track the revenue and ensure it was paying for new development, whether $3,000 was a proper amount from each homeowner and why an existing urban services extension fee didn’t provide the needed revenue.
“The council liked some aspects of the idea,” said Mayor Ed Tauer. “But if we’re going to go to the voters, we need to do some more homework.”
Council members also rejected a plan that would have asked voters in November to reduce the mandated ratio of two officers for every 1,000 residents to 1.8 officers.
That served as welcome news for Agent Don James, president of the Aurora Police Association. “I imagine this will be back,” he said.
Changing the ratio, after all, is one of the first topics that will be discussed by a 25-member, blue-ribbon City Council advisory committee formed by the council Monday night.
The panel will provide recommendations to the council on possible weighty ballot issues. Council members and the mayor will choose the members, and the panel will be disbanded in July 2008. Among the first matters to be discussed will be whether the city should become a county, whether the police-to-resident ratio should be reduced and whether a new council ward should be added.
The panel also will consider whether to change the city government, whether to raise the salaries of the mayor and council and whether to make those positions full time or part time.
The council would use the panel’s recommendations in deciding whether to put any of these questions on the ballot.
The panel will discuss “what goes on the ballot, what doesn’t and what should move forward,” said council member Steve Hogan, who brought forward the issue.
“It’s not to suggest we aren’t doing our job,” he said. “These issues deserve some hearing and comment from the community at large. (They) deserve an opportunity for people to come and comment and participate outside our formal structures.”
Staff writer Jeremy P. Meyer may be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
