BOND PACKAGE WILL REQUIRE MORE HIRING
Denver’s $937 million bond package needs more employees to get projects going
It’s one thing to put together a bond package approaching $1 billion, but the harder task facing Denver officials is how to spend that voter-approved money while delivering roughly 460 projects as close to their budgets as possible.
It was one thing to put together a city bond package approaching $1 billion, but the harder task facing Denver officials in coming years is how to spend that voterapproved money while delivering roughly 460 projects as close to their budgets as possible.
Key decisions Tuesday night will set the stage for the first expected project groundbreakings this summer on the bond program, officially valued at $937 million. After some debate in recent weeks over how to pay for project oversight, the City Council is expected to approve a three-year, $19 million contract with a program management consultant and sign off on additional spending that allows for the filling of 13 new city jobs in coming months.
All told, the marshaling of the bond program will cost $4.5 million this year. The annual cost will rise next year, according to council documents, as the newly hired city staffers work their first full year and the work of the contractor, Atkins North America, reaches full throttle.
The delicate dance will begin immediately, finance spokeswoman Courtney Law said, as Atkins works with the new staffers to figure out the complicated first phases of the project schedule and when to sell batches of bonds. Some projects have been worked out only as conceptual ideas, while others have designs ready to go.
“They’re going to have to look at a number of different factors when they do that,” Law said.
She said the city is aiming to put out the initial bond offering to investors in June, which would allow for the first projects to get started soon after.
And at some point, city officials have said, they plan to repeat the city’s past wildly successful minibond programs, which allowed residents to buy bonds at $500 a pop.
Denver’s citywide bond program, the first since the 2007 Better Denver Bonds, will be farreaching. Over the next decade, the project list calls for the repaving of hundreds of miles of roads, the addition of new sidewalks and bikeways, and renovations at dozens of city libraries, including the Denver Central Library, as well as recreation centers and public safety buildings.
New construction projects include a recreation center in Westwood, two replacement police district stations and a new fire station. The bond also will chip in for the Denver Health and Hospital Authority’s new Outpatient Medical Center and expansion or renovation projects planned by the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts,
the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Denver Zoo and the Denver Botanic Gardens.
Among the city projects receiving funding on the transportation-heavy bond list are a bus rapid-transit plan on Colfax Avenue, an intensive makeover of downtown’s 16th Street Mall and new pedestrian bridges in Elyria-Swansea and Overland. The bond program’s total includes $50 million to cover unexpected costs.
But how to pay for project oversight?
That question was debated hotly by council members in recent weeks, with some suggesting that the bond proceeds should be tapped to pay for staff support.
The 13 new employees, hired for eight-year limited positions, will include city and parks planners, project managers and supervisors, a public works engineer, a construction attorney, a financial analyst and a con- tract compliance coordinator.
They will be assisted by Atkins, a Tampa, Fla.-based firm with a local office in the Denver Tech Center that later will track project spending, perform public outreach, assist with workforce development and manage resources, among other duties.
The consultant’s involvement replicates the setup of the Better Denver Bonds a decade ago.
Unlike that round of projects, which were started just as the Great Recession took hold, the city this time doesn’t plan to tap into bond proceeds. Mayor Michael Hancock said it doesn’t make sense to pay for staff costs by borrowing and paying interest over two decades or more.
“This is coming out of the general fund at my request,” he said at a recent Mayor-Council meeting. “Bond project proceeds should not pay for personnel unless there’s an extreme case. In 2007, when we did the Better Denver Bonds, the city of Denver had no money to pay for this service.”
On Feb. 12, the council voted 9-3 on introduction for this year’s $4.5 million spending proposal, with Rafael Espinoza, Kevin Flynn and Debbie Ortega voting no.
The final vote is set for Tuesday.
Flynn and Espinoza, in particular, argued that bond proceeds should be used for oversight, not the budget.
But Councilwoman Robin Kniech, who had raised the issue because the city’s new affordable housing fund and some other taxsupported programs pay for at least part of their administration costs, said she saw merit in Hancock’s view.
“I think that’s a compelling argument for why not to put staff in the bond if you have the budget to pay for that,” she said, while urging consistency for other programs. “I hope we continue that conversation. I certainly will be more vigilant about this in the next budget.”