Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has told city employees they will need to take two more furlough days this year to help the city as its crucial sales-tax revenues continue their free fall.
The two new furlough days — which were not unanticipated — will come on Oct. 23 and Nov. 27. They will bring to four the total number of furlough days city workers will take this year.
“We are aware of the financial hardship that some budget decisions might have on you and your family,” Hickenlooper wrote in an e-mail to city employees Friday, “and we appreciate your sacrifices and your professionalism during these difficult economic times.”
The three required furlough days remaining this year — one furlough day is scheduled for Friday — will save the city about $1 million each. But that number pales compared with the $70 million the city estimates it needs to cut from the 2010 budget to match slumping revenue figures.
The city’s 2009 approved budget was $914 million.
Making those bigger cuts will require the city to pare services it provides the public, something made more difficult by the fact that 70 percent of the city’s overall expenses are personnel costs like salaries and benefits, said Ed Scholz, the mayor’s budget director.
Hickenlooper said city officials will begin engaging the public at regularly scheduled community meetings to determine where residents can tolerate cuts.
“Our job . . . is to go out and find out exactly what people want,” Hickenlooper told The Denver Post’s editorial board Friday. “How much do they want their services?”
City Council members said identifying places to cut will require the city to separate — and protect — critical services like police patrols and firefighting from less-critical services.
“Once you get past fire, police and trash collection, then to me everything else is placed on the table,” City Councilman Michael Hancock said.
Denver’s economic outlook grew only bleaker in March, when sales-tax collections — which make up about 50 percent of the city’s revenue — dropped 15.3 percent compared with March of last year. In February, the decline was about 10 percent year over year, and, for the first three months of 2009, collections are down 12 percent compared with last year.
Hickenlooper said he and his staff have worked “relentlessly” to reduce government inefficiencies and cut out duplicate services or programs. He has also already asked the city’s department managers to come up with ways to reduce their projected 2010 expenditures by 7 percent.
Councilman Charlie Brown said he thinks council members should follow suit with their offices.
“We need to set an example as well,” Brown said.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com.
