'Looks like it's going to be ugly' for 2010 budget

Get ready for another painful budget year, Colorado Springs.

City government, which has laid off dozens of employees and cut back on everything from bus service to irrigating parks, is preparing a menu of cost-cutting and revenue-generating options to deal with a nearly $24 million budget shortfall in 2010.

The proposals won't be made public until they're presented to the City Council, probably Aug. 10, but Councilman Tom Gallagher said 2010 is going to make 2009 look like a good year.

"It looks like it's going to be ugly," Gallagher said.

Sales taxes, which generate more than half the city's general fund revenues that pay for day-to-day operations, are expected to improve toward the end of 2010. But they're projected to get off to a slow start.

"We will be updating our sales tax forecast again, but, currently, we're projecting it to decline a little over 3 percent for next year," Kara Skinner, the city's financial services manager, said Tuesday.

Expenses are projected to increase at the same time.

Among the cost increases next year is the city's contribution to the police and firefighters pension plans, up $4.6 million, for $14.6 million next year.

Skinner said the city is considering fee increases in the parks, streets and police departments. But she said she didn't have specifics because individual departments haven't offered proposals.

"But if there is going to be a fee increase, many of them do have a public process," she said.

The city is grasping for every available penny.

In May, the council instructed City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft to bring back options for extending a property tax that's set to expire in December after voters shot down Issue 1A in April. The ballot question asked voters to extend the tax to pay for economic development.

Culbreth-Graft is scheduled to present the options to council July 13. Among her expected proposals are extending the property tax, which generates about $3 million a year, and dedicating the funding for either general city services or capital improvement projects.

The council may decide to place one of the proposals on the November ballot.