City of Colorado Springs decides against pitching RTA funding idea

The city of Colorado Springs on Wednesday decided not to pitch a plan to hire its own employees to do work on Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority road projects now being done by consultants and temporary workers.

City staffers asked the Rural Transportation Authority board to withdraw the proposal from its Wednesday meeting agenda. The city could ask the proposal be put back on the RTA board’s agenda next month.

Currently, a RTA policy prevents member governments of the authority from using money raised by a one-cent sales tax to hire regular employees to work on RTA-funded road projects.

The city said it can save $1.7 million a year to fund more capital and road maintenance work if it could either pay existing employees or hire “at will” employees to work on RTA projects. The city estimates it spends twice as much to hire consultants and up to 30 percent more to hire temporary workers than it would cost to do the work in-house.

The decision to withdraw the proposal came after several members of the RTA board reacted negatively to another city proposal. Under that proposal, the city wants to be allowed to pay vendors directly on any joint RTA-city capital project funded by state or federal funds. Currently, the city must approve vendor invoices and then forward them to the RTA, which pays the bills. That proposal also was removed from Wednesday’s agenda.