Facing $80 million budget deficit, Hickenlooper again asks for help
Mayor John Hickenlooper addresses the Democratic National Convention.
Last year the city and Mayor Hickenlooper faced a $160 million budget deficit. In the absence of enough moves by the Mayor and his staff to balance the budget, the Mayor appealed to city employees to provide ideas on how to bridge that gap.
The Mayor faces a similar challenge with the next budget cycle which projects a $80 million shortfall. Adding to this year’s difficulty is the fact that the city exhausted its reserves to bridge last year’s gap.
The Mayor’s letter to city employees was issued yesterday.
April 21, 2010
Dear City Employees:
We proved last year that no budget challenge is too great to overcome – even though we faced the greatest drop in revenue since the Great Depression. It wasn’t easy. But with your help we balanced a budget that started with a $160 million deficit.
We face a similar challenge today, although the hill to climb is not as steep thanks to your continued efforts to work efficiently and save money. We are starting this month to build the budget for 2011. The projected gap between revenues and expenditures is $80 million.
We are confident we can make up this difference with more good ideas and hard work. We also see signs that our economy is on the rebound. For example, core sales tax revenue collected by the City in February showed a 3.3 percent increase over a year earlier. This marked the third consecutive month of improved sales tax collections after 14 consecutive months of declines.
Sales tax revenue makes up nearly half of the City’s general fund budget. Last year, the City collected $387.8 million – a 10 percent reduction from 2008. We are projecting a modest increase in sales tax revenue this year of approximately 3.5 percent. That’s enough to return funding to the same level seen in 2006.
We will continue to monitor sales tax and other revenue carefully in the coming months to see if any adjustments must be made as we head toward 2011. Right now, we are not expecting any mid-year cuts or significant spending changes. Our focus is steadfast on maintaining core services for our residents, creating sustainable changes that lead to budget savings and finding ways to reinvest in our City workforce.
None of this can be achieved without your hard work and assistance. Last year, we asked for your budget-saving suggestions and you responded in a big way. We collected more than 800 ideas about how to cut costs or work more efficiently. We’re asking you to send your suggestions again this year to MileHighMayor@denvergov.org or call 720-865-8181. We will tell you about the best ideas we receive as the 2011 budget is created this summer.
Thank you for your continued professionalism and service to our community.
Sincerely,
Mayor John Hickenlooper
So Hick asks Ritter,
Ritter asks Obama,
and all’s right with the social-ist world.
Except Obama doesn’t ask me,
he just takes it. It is called social justice.
Just Us.
Hey, at least Hick actually ASKS the people involved.
As a volunteer member of one of the City’s Commissions, I see the Mayor’s work up close, if not every day, certainly every week. He is far from perfect – getting his attention can be like trying to talk to a bored two-year-old – but that’s just because he still has this “Everybody Counts” attitude (in these times, how droll). He tries to give his attention to everything – sometimes all at once – and sometimes the details suffer.
That said, he is a true consensus-builder. In working with the various – and widely varied – interests in this city, he has truly mastered the art of herding cats.
He is many things, but Social-ist is not even remotely one of them. My property taxes are a fraction of what I would pay in most cities, Denver has the lowest total city/county sales taxes of any part of the core metro area (see http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=denver+metro+tax+rates&aq=1&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=denver+metro+tax&gs_rfai=&fp=50954f7df8d7ab63), yet unlike Colorado Springs, the buses are still running here.
He has for darn sure got my vote for Governor.
Ah marymor – spoken as a true Denver liberal who regularly drinks the ‘no-stick-hick’ kool aid. You hit it right on the head with your ‘bored two-year old’ description. People like him for that very reason – the aw-shucks-ain’t-I-a-funny-former-geologist schtick that has become very tired for those of us who are paying attention and not wanting to just be within 5 feet of ‘that’ guy.
Where’s the tough decision maker? Where’s the guy who will take some responsibility for what’s happening around him and quit laying it off on the city workers and continuing to ask for their help. Make a damn decision Mr. Charming! Why does he need a customer service ‘czar’ making a high five figure salary? And what has that position produced? Why isn’t he and the cabinet taking a pay CUT or FREEZE during the hard times? Why does he still protect ‘Greenprint Denver’ and their allocated millions? And marymor, since you have already cast your vote for Governor, why is your charming all inclusive buddy still pocketing his City salary while running a state-wide campaign? Is that really fair?Maybe that should have been the first sentence of his letter – coming clean on taking a full salary while running for another job.
I am one of the 176+ former city employees who were never acknowledged by hizzoner for our true sacrifice of accepting lay offs last year. Yes ‘lay offs’ two words that never crossed his lips. We were ‘impacted employees’.
I guess we weren’t part of his ‘everybody counts’ when it came time to send us our ‘welcome-out’ notes two weeks before thanksgiving last year. No, I’m not bitter, I just don’t want to see it happen to other city workers because he and his ‘posse’ can’t be decisive and make tough decisions.
It will be truly unfortunate when you and the rest of the libs in Colorado look to a popularity/beauty contest in November instead of a choice between candidates and their stand on issues, real issues, not just his aw-shucks personal appearances. (But then again there is hope, he does have a ‘D’ after is name on the ballot.)
And it looks like you already cast your vote before you’ve even heard Hick dodge one state-wide issue, now that’s what I call informed voting marymor.
Liberal elitists, like you, the Hick-ster, his administration, and most of City Council continue to show the lack of guts it takes to make the tough decisions that will truly help fix the budget deficit. Ask the city employees and the citizens to help again…and again? Does Hick even know the word “lead”? Consensus building my arse – when does he make a real decision? And do you even live in Denver? Wake up.
If I’m such a liberal, why are my liberal neighbors always pi$$ed at me for my conservative viewpoint?
Which just makes my point – I am constantly being lambasted for being either a liberal or a conservative, depending on the forum. Just re-affirms my comfortable centrist-ness.
And remember, I voted for Mike Coffman – hardly the act of a liberal…
Mary, I seen that have listened as a real right winged to cheney and believe that false information about privacy. But us that know about the constitutional professor which has big hope and change that sees that in the health care plan we have to but the common man above that right winged nonsense. We can give u that right winged constitutional thinking about health cares so we can get rid of that thinking for postoffice care and printmedias care.
Now we can charge people fines and taxes for not buying papers and shipping through the post office with letters and boxes. That moneys from them two sources can go to help the post office and medias that are not cheney medias.
art
Art, you’re a nice guy, but your ideas are still nuts. By your logic, we would still be riding in horse-drawn carriages, because of the number of industries (some of them nearly a thousand years old), that were destroyed by the invention of the automobile. Never mind the number of new industries, and jobs, that were subsequently created.
The Post Office and printed media are dying a natural death, as they are being replaced by better, easier technologies. Yes, it is painful at times – progress frequently is. But stagnation isn’t just painful, it’s deadly.
Furthermore,
Yes I live in Denver, and yes I’ve seen Hick make decisions. I have deep respect for the fact he tries to build consensus rather than being authoritarian. But when the rubber hits the road, the decision is his. Some of the decisions I agreed with, others I didn’t. But I’ve never seen him shrink from the “Buck” stopping at his desk.
Also:
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Denver+Mayor%27s+Office&l1=Denver,+CO (Mayor’s Ofc salaries)
http://www.denverpost.com/election08/ci_13341633?source=pkg (Budget decisions)
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Denver+Mayor&l1=Denver%2C+CO (Mayor’s Salary)
YOU wake up. You claim you are paying attention, but clearly you are not.
. . . and the trains run on time !!
That I couldn’t speak to. But working with the disabled, many of whom depend on the bus, I can tell you that the buses in Denver are probably the most reliable west of the Mississippi.
Mary, you’re a nice woman, but your ideas are still nuts. By your logic, we could solve all these budget shortfalls by spending more money. We could have the government pay people to drive around slowly in horse-drawn carriages, and not pollute the air with carbon. We could keep all our people happy by having the busses and trains efficient and putting Toyota and big oil and banks and greedy profit corporations out of business. Best we destroy the automobile anyway. New industries? Ha. That is not the idea of a common people country like Cuba or the US of OBAma. Only thing, that bit about the trains running on time – it was once the best thing a country 65 years ago could say about their el Dictator. After they found the ‘jig is up’ they hung him up and quartered him and his people threw things at his dead body. Historical fact.
Gene – repeated comments I have made in this forum for the better part of a year now make it perfectly clear I believe no such thing. You’re just sore because I keep hitting you with facts you don’t like, and the best you can come up with in response is op-ed pieces and silly George Carlin routines (although I admit that latter was fun).
Mary,
yep it is all evident that you have been listening to Cheny media. Cheney says that people should use all these new fangled ways to get health cares and the patient help manage the ares themselfs. I am so glad that Obama know that he has the hope and change and has to make people do things for the common man.
art
Art – thanks! I needed a good chuckle.
Just where do you think I am encountering these “Cheney media”? I don’t listen to radio, I never watch TV news, 90% of the television I watch is Animal Planet or Science Fiction Channel (do you think Cheney is writing scripts for “Stargate Universe?” Maybe “It’s Me or the Dog?”) I do pick up the newspaper now and again, but it’s mostly so I can do the cryptoquip & the crossword. Practically the only current things I read are the National Geographic and Science News (yeah, now there’s a Cheney target – he wouldn’t recognize science if it bit him in the backside).
I do use the internet to track which politician introduced or voted for or against what, but that is a matter of public record. Liberals and conservatives alike have a blast publicly bashing each other over the head with this information – do you honestly think they could put a lie like that out there, and prevent anybody & everybody from calling them on it?
Dude, I get my political and socio-economic opinions from studying history – that written both by the winners, and the losers (it’s out there if you dig for it). A lot of it written before Cheney was ever born. A lot more of it not written by either “side”, but just hard numbers that I crunch myself.
Which is why, despite Gene’s snarky remarks, I do NOT think everything can be solved by spending money – the money has to come from somewhere – which is why I think business taxes, large & small, need to go DOWN.
Mary,
Thanks for telling on yourself on all that Cheney medias you listen to and watch about. I knew some of those were Cheny media but not those other ones you talk about.
You have to see that business taxes are what makes the obamacare work and will also help the postoffice care and newspaper mediacare. So do not get all set up on that cheney thought of lower taxes. Get your heads back in the game of hope and change. You can do much better with just listening to obama and his good election words. That wil stop that right nut wing thoughts you get of-like not helping the newspaper media.
art