The violent spring storms last week brought harsh, deadly reminders of the real cost of aging infrastructure.
Deadly waters coursing through west Denver’s Lakewood Gulch trail took the life of 2-year-old Jose Matthew Jauregui Jr. The violent weather nearly cost Denver Rescue’s Chad Cramner his life as he saved the distraught mother.
The same “50-year storm event” flooded Goldsmith Gulch in southeast Denver, where Denver Police Officer Jairon Katz jumped in the water to save a young man who was swept downstream. Katz had to be rescued by his colleagues. The young man, who may have been rescued, wasn’t found. No missing person reports have been filed.
The city had failed to repair the aging culvert despite the repeated warnings of adjacent property and business owners. Former Councilwoman Elbra Wedgeworth insisted on repairing the culvert following the accident.
These tragedies are extreme examples of what happens when regular maintenance is underfunded and when a region’s population growth exceeds the capacity of important, albeit usually invisible, safety infrastructure.
For the past two years, Denver officials and citizens have examined the condition of existing infrastructure, the need for new investment and funding strategies. What’s clear in the report and recommendations of the Mayor’s Infrastructure Task Force is that maintenance and repair of the city’s existing assets and facilities that support basic services have been neglected.
Tight budgets, declining revenues dedicated to capital maintenance and a tendency to ask voters to fund sexy new projects – without mentioning the deteriorating condition of older facilities – exact a toll. Informed estimates of Denver’s deferred maintenance total at least $390 million.
In other words, it will take approximately $400 million to address deferred maintenance of Denver’s streets, parks, public buildings and other assets. After that, it will cost about $25 million per year to maintain these assets at an acceptable level.
In March, the task force’s finance committee recommended the city raise the mill levy by 3 mills to fund ongoing deferred maintenance.
Mayor John Hickenlooper and his finance advisers are reluctant to raise taxes. They believe smart managers can squeeze the general fund budget to find some of this money. Certainly a concerted citywide effort to explore efficiencies or consolidation would result in savings. How much can be found and how long it will take to focus 11,000 general fund employees on this task are open questions.
Clearly there are ways to shrink government. Reducing services, eliminating programs and cutting the payroll by not filling vacancies are among the strategies. Denver voters would have to participate in this realignment.
If the general fund is squeezed to accommodate capital maintenance, how will officials pay for unanticipated emergencies, such as a 50-year snowstorm?
In a recent interview on Colorado Public Radio, our optimistic, bottom-line mayor insists “we won’t raise taxes until we demonstrate that we’ve found efficiencies by looking at every task a city worker is doing and see if we can do it cheaper.”
He is determined to find as much as $5 million per year (in an $800 million budget) to fund deferred maintenance. Keep in mind that an increase of 1 mill, which would cost the typical homeowner $20 in property tax, generates nearly $10 million.
He may need to ponder the short- and long-term costs of this penny-wise, pound-foolish approach to funding aging infrastructure – before he swallows such a large bite.
Susan Barnes-Gelt (bs13@qwest.net) served eight years on the Denver City Council and was an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. Her column appears on alternate Sundays.
