Opinion: How to fund Boulder’s building projects without a tax increase

The (re)emergence of the need to fund repairs and replacements of multiple City of Boulder buildings has encouraged me to try (again) to interest the city council in the large increase in Boulder’s spending that has occurred. I think this is important because, based on my analysis to date, the city, without seriously impacting levels of service (LOS), could reduce its operating budget and thereby save enough to fund most, if not all, of the required building work without a tax increase.

I started by looking at the overall budget. It increased (inflation-adjusted) by about 23% over the last 10 years. Then I deducted the capital expenditures, so that it only reflected the operating budget, which in theory measures how much is being expended to pay staff and others to maintain LOS.

The operating budget per capita (inflation-adjusted) increased by over 18% during the last 10 years; the number of employees increased by around 200 to well over 1,500, even after eliminating the library employees, and with population growth essentially flat. (I received considerable help on this data work, which I really appreciate!)

The next obvious question is, what does the city council have to show for the operating budget increasing by almost $35 million per year (in 2025 dollars) in terms of improving our LOS? “Level of service” is a catchall term that describes quantitatively how much we are getting for our taxes. It could include the number of police on patrol, the number of rec center hours of operation, the frequency of pothole repairs, etc.

From my experience (and others), I cannot see any improvements of consequence. Thus, I assumed that the city could cut this amount, or something close, from the operating budget and then divert it to making the needed capital improvements.

To figure out the details of exactly where to cut city expenditures would not be a trivial task. Current staffing levels would likely have to decrease. But there are records of what positions were added in the last decade. Figuring out where to reverse things would not be impossible.

Additionally, a significant portion of Boulder’s revenues come in the form of “dedicated” taxes; these are committed to specific uses, like Open Space, Transportation, Parks and Rec, etc. So to shift some of these revenues between departments for the requisite number of years would require a citizen vote.

Doing year-to-year comparative analyses has been made much more difficult because of the restructuring of the various city departments and budget models that has occurred over the last few years. It has also led to weird duplications of service, like where we now have a communications department, and alongside that many departments have their own communications specialists. (Based on my and others’ experience, this “communication” stuff is not working very well. Getting a substantive response to your problem is difficult.)

To do this work properly and completely, the city council should hire a performance auditor to help sort out what expenditures to cut. This would not be just a standard annual review of the city’s books, but an in-depth evaluation focusing on determining what operating expenses are unnecessary and where efficiencies could be implemented.

The council has the power to hire such an auditor directly, and to tell the auditor “by order” what to do. The council specifically does NOT have to do this through the city manager; that would defeat the whole point of this independent review. Charter Section 12 states: “The council shall choose and appoint a city manager, a city attorney, a municipal judge, and an auditor for such independent audits as are in this charter required or authorized to be made by order of the council, and such advisory boards or commissions as may be desired…”

The auditor would identify areas where, over the last 10 or so years, duplications of services have occurred, staff persons have been hired who have not directly improved LOS, and operating expenditures have been unnecessarily increased.

Also, an “expert advisory board” of citizens should be appointed to assist the auditor. And, critically, these citizens should also work with architects and engineers to ensure that the proposed building expenditures are the most efficient ways to solve whatever the current problems are and thus avoid any unnecessary spending.

Once all this is done, I strongly suspect that enough savings will be realized to fund most, if not all, of the necessary work on the city’s buildings within a reasonable time frame, without the need for a tax increase, and without any significant reduction in LOS.