When the Denver City Council meets Monday to discuss using $2.5 million in contingency funds to shore up programs that provide child care for the working poor and help the homeless, the debate will also focus on the right approach to tackling the city’s budget crunch.
Some say now is not the time to make the move, considering Mayor John Hickenlooper is seeking pay cuts from the police and fire unions and has fired 11 sheriff’s deputies.
Jeff Shaw, a sheriff’s deputy and vice president of the union for deputies, is among those who are critical of the council move to bolster child-care programs.
“It’s a matter of priorities, and this mayor and this mayor’s office, does not have any of their priorities right,” he said.
Councilwoman Carol Boigon has rounded up the votes to pass the measure. But Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said she doesn’t understand why the mayor agreed to the move, considering he’s seeking cuts in public-safety agencies to help close a $56 million general fund budget gap.
“She has the votes, but what type of message does that send to the guys you are asking to make concessions?” Faatz said.
Also on display Monday will be a new legislative strategy from Hickenlooper’s administration. This time he’s joined forces with Boigon instead of pushing back.
Boigon and the mayor say the extra spending on subsidizing child care and helping the homeless will save the city money in the long run by keeping families who can’t access subsidized child care from having to go on welfare and by keeping the homeless out of emergency rooms.
In the past, Hickenlooper fought initiatives aimed at shifting general fund money to pay for some cherished wishes of City Council members.
In 2003, he unsuccessfully fought Faatz’s effort to use emergency reserves to hire 19 more police officers.
He also waged a losing effort in 2007 against Boigon’s push to boost the salary of all of the city’s non-safety employees. In the end, Boigon persuaded the rest of the council to override the city’s first mayoral veto of a budget amendment. She paid for the raises by taking money from the mayor’s program to provide city employees annual performance bonuses.
During both of those struggles, the mayor warned the council that the moves would have budget ramifications that might come back to haunt the city if the economy weakened.
The move to hire the extra police officers had an initial cost of $612,000 in the first year, projected to increase up to $1.7 million by 2010. Boigon’s push to boost the pay of non-safety workers had an initial price tag of $2.6 million.
The mayor’s chief of staff, Kelly Brough, said the extra money for child care and the homeless will come from contingency funds, which are used for unexpected problems, not emergency reserves.
“This year, the unexpected event has been the incredible reduction in resources for human services, much larger than any department in the city has faced,” she said.
Boigon said the city still has healthy emergency reserves of about $130 million.
“Somebody has to do right by kids while their parents are at work,” she said.
“I don’t see the budget as in shambles around here at all,” Boigon said. “All I see is hard economic times and careful choices that have to be made.”
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
Downturn sets off falling dominoes
As a result of the current downturn, the city has had to take steps — considered drastic by some on the council — to cut spending.
The mayor authorized using $12 million in emergency reserves and set in motion hundreds of cuts to balance the budget. He’s suspended the bonus program completely this year. His Cabinet also agreed to forgo raises.
He ordered city employees to take a furlough day this month and warned more could be coming.
And there’s the potential that budget constraints could get worse.
January’s sales-tax revenue came in 10.3 percent lower than the amount collected in January 2008. If figures like those continue through the year, the projected $56 million budget gap will grow.
