Layoffs and furlough days for city employees and pay freezes for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s cabinet members and the city council are among the measures being presented by the mayor today as part of a plan to plug a $100 million gap in the 2011 budget.
Other budget-cutting measures include steeper fines for red-light runners and speeders and reduced library hours.
Under an earlier agreement, the city’s police officers will delay their negotiated pay raises of 3 percent to December of 2011 instead of getting those raises in January as is normally done. Firefighters also previously agreed to delay their raises.
The mayor will also abolish 158 positions in the city’s workforce, about 38 of which will be done through layoffs.
The mayor also will tap $9 million in reserves, leaving the city an undesignated general fund balance of about $94 million, or about 10.5 percent of expenditures.
City policy advises that the undesignated fund balance should not dip below 10 percent of expenditures, which would equal $90 million and strives to keep that balance at around 15 percent of expenditures in normal economic times, or $135 million.
“The economic crisis of the past three years, this Great Recession, has not spared the city of Denver,” the mayor said in a letter he released today to council members, city employees and city residents. “Though signs suggest the economy is improving in some areas, many of our businesses and residents continue to struggle.”
The 2011 budget is the third year in a row the city has faced a budget shortfall. Once 2011 is factored in, the city will have overcome deficits totalling $346 million since the start of 2009, roughly 13 percent of the budgets for all three years.
Non-safety city workers will see merit raises averaging 2.2 percent next year, but they will see their health care premiums increase by an average of 7 percent and they will also have to pay an extra 1 percent toward their retirement plans.
General fund operating expenditures are projected to jump by 4.1 percent in 2011, up to $896.6 million.
To close the $100 million budget gap for next year, the mayor said he used efficiencies and savings of $52 million, “revenue enhancements” of $39 million and $9 million in reserves.
Much of the revenue enhancements came from the one-time use of $17.8 million in excess fire pension mill levy funds, which will finance new hire pension costs and other existing fire operational needs.
Hickenlooper also will raise traffic fines to match the metro-area average and will eliminate an early payment discount on traffic fines. The traffic fine changes were the only fines the mayor decided to hike.
“City employees and our community have exhibited great resolve in the face of difficult economic conditions in recent years,” Hickenlooper said in his letter. “Collectively, we have a certain Western spirit of toughness and innovation that eliminates barriers to progress.”
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
