Underestimate to cost city more than $422,000

Oops.

Colorado Springs underestimated its 2008 property-tax revenue by $422,571 when it asked voters in the April 7 municipal election to allow it to keep only up to $1.2 million in excess revenue to pay for "essential city services."

Rather than go back and ask voters again to allow the city to keep the amount it underestimated, which otherwise has to be refunded under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a divided City Council decided Tuesday to "live with the consequences."

As a result, the city's estimated 220,000 utility customers will get a refund of about $1.92.

"I think we had our shot, and we underestimated, so I won't be interested in going back and asking the question again," said Mayor Lionel Rivera, who was joined by Vice Mayor Larry Small and council members Tom Gallagher, Jan Martin and Randy Purvis.

Purvis called the $422,571 difference "a pretty huge error" and said the city was going to "look bad" whether it went back to the voters or not.

"Let's learn from this and try not to make the mistake in the future," he said.

Terri Velasquez, the city's chief financial officer, said the city had to estimate the amount of excess property-tax revenue in January, before the council set the ballot title for Issue 1B in early February.

"We felt we were estimating higher than what we would have needed to," she said. "We could have gone even further above that, but I think our concern is, we wouldn't want to raise expectations beyond what we thought we would actually receive."
Issue 1B passed by a razor-thin margin.

The city also asked voters in April to extend a property tax, which is set to expire at the end of this year, to pay for economic-development efforts. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Issue 1A, known as the jobs initiative.

But council members instructed City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft to return with options for extending the property tax, possibly for the November ballot.

-

Call the writer at 476-1623.