Why our budget matters

In case you missed it, the City of Boulder’s 2022 budget request is close to $1/2 billion. $463 million, to be precise. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of dough that our community allocates to critical city services and important programs. It’s also an expression of our community values and priorities.

Yet, like many things having to do with city government, the public doesn’t receive a lot of information about these budgets and has not been engaged in the discussions about priority trade-offs, underlying work plan adjustments and revenue risk.

As evidence of this relatively low-level resident budget awareness, the first public budget hearing on Sept. 28 yielded only four community speakers. This is not unusual, as I remember from my years on council: very few people cared to discuss the budget! Given all that the city’s budget represents, this lack of attention is perplexing.

The city staff budget team does make a valiant effort to convey the underlying information as publicly accessible as possible. However, in their zeal for transparency, the budget document exceeds 300 printed pages and is almost 3 pounds. It can be overwhelming, both for the public and Council members, to wade into the morass.

Prioritizing and managing the budget should be the most important activity for any Council member. Some civic organizations are waking up to the importance of a Council member’s ability to manage a large and complex budget. The Coalition, of which I am a member, asked 14 potential candidates about budget prioritization as a criteria for their endorsement.

When I was on Council, I studied the budget and sent three pages of questions to staff via “Hotline.” My Council counterparts also came to the budget decision meeting with requests for changes. We then negotiated between ourselves and the city manager to accomplish our objectives for the year.

This year, in the Sept. 28 Council meeting, Council approved the budget unanimously on first reading with very little discussion. It is my observation that the internal Executive Budget Committee, primarily finance staff, has an outsized influence on city priorities. They work in private with no real data telling them what we, the residents, prioritize.

Our community deserves more informed and higher-level scrutiny of the annual budget. The public review process time should be much longer than a month. Further, our new city manager should institute a best-in-class process for engaging the public in an easy and fun way. Finally, Council members should spend more of their time evaluating, discussing, and debating the budget and our city’s operations.

Nevertheless, this year’s budget documents our city’s priorities. When utilities and capital expenses are removed, the Police budget stands at $40.4 million and is the single largest budget item, projecting a $2.8 million increase from 2020 actuals. Open Space and Parks & Recreation follow as the next largest overall budget departments, funded at $31 million and $28.3 million, respectively.

And for those of us interested in the arts, this budget will restore the cultural grants program from last year’s cutbacks. However, at $1.6 million, the arts budget represents a pea-sized contribution to the overall expenditures, and is more than $1 million below the recommended funding in the 2015 Community Cultural Plan.

You can probably tell I have a beef here. Given that the arts and culture represent our social infrastructure, and what is often highlighted as Boulder’s key differentiator, the lack of budget investment in this area, where this is still great need for support, is disappointing. Further, given the importance of arts to advancing our diversity and inclusion goals, why isn’t it a greater consideration in Boulder’s expenditures?

Those reading this column might have other programmatic priorities. Maybe your deepest concern is potholes on city streets. Whatever it might be, a critical review of the 300-page annual budget will let you know if the city shares that priority. And there is still time to weigh-in on the 2022 budget, with the second public hearing scheduled for Oct. 19.

For the future, though, I urge our new city manager to change organization structures and current methodology of budgeting by department. Staff is a valuable resource, but they should not be dictating our priorities. And if we really want change, let’s ask our Council members and those running for election to articulate their own priorities and how they intend to engage the public in future budget development.

Jan Burton is a former member of Boulder City Council.

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