Do “Denver values,” whatever they may be, demand that city taxpayers maintain an idyllic 1,000-acre park 20 miles south of the city near exclusive Douglas County neighborhoods and adjacent to the spectacular but private Sanctuary Golf Course?
Apparently so. The official Denver task force charged with fashioning proposals to eliminate the city’s structural deficit concluded this week that unloading the multiple parks outside the city would be “contrary to Denver’s values,” and rejected the idea even though it could net $1.1 million.
It seems that Denver’s values are perfectly aligned with imposing new or higher fees on trash collection, residential parking permits, Sunday parking, and a variety of other services, but are hostile somehow to the idea that city parks should be, you know, near where citizens live.
Granted, $1.1 million only goes so far toward closing the structural budget gap, under which city expenditures are projected to grow at a faster rate than revenues if nothing is done. But then charging for residential parking permits doesn’t go far, either (a measly $25,000 a year); nor does resetting parking meters once cars drive off ($460,000 to $1.4 million annually); as well as several other perfectly legitimate proposals.
And this is what irks me about the task force’s report: It betrays far more eagerness to ferret out and support opportunities for higher taxes and fees than in identifying opportunities to streamline government and cut needless expenses.
While the report is forthright and clear, for example, in its recommendations to de-Bruce the city’s property tax, reset the mill levy, impose a fee on residential trash collection, dedicate a tax to support libraries or parks, and consider indexing fees and fines — just to cite a few examples — it is markedly more circumspect in its approach to savings.
To its credit, the report does grapple with soaring health-care expenditures by proposing the city move to a self-funded insurance program — and short of that, that Denver “consider” reducing the number of insurance plans and setting a fixed-dollar subsidy regardless of plan. (Why “consider”? There was no such reticence with revenue proposals.)
The report says pay increases for uniformed employees averaged 3.68 percent between 2001 and 2011, comfortably above inflation, and projects compensation to continue growing at a compounded annual rate of 4 percent for the next 17 years. So it proposes negotiating a wage-increase cap into collective bargaining agreements to be triggered in hard times. Well, good luck with that. I can’t see the safety unions ever agreeing to such a plan, given their (not entirely unfounded) distrust of city budget projections.
Couldn’t the task force muster the courage to directly dispute the desirability of granting pay hikes above inflation given the city’s fiscal shape?
Meanwhile, the task force timidly declares, Denver should study whether to eliminate the superflous public safety cadet program ($1.2 million), study whether to consolidate municipal elections ($1.2 million to $2.4 million, and a no-brainer), and study whether to reduce fire stations or consolidate small agencies to reduce administrative costs.
How about consolidating and streamlining personnel systems?
The task force fails to identify a single service that might be performed by non-profits or the private sector, although it says the idea is worth exploring. Why am I not surprised?
To be clear, I’m not suggesting the city’s structural deficit can be eliminated without more revenue. Not at all. But this is a historic opportunity to address both revenues and expenditures in a creative way, and the task force’s heart seems to have been devoted to only half of the job.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter @vcarrollDP
