AURORA | Any increase to the city's current sales and use tax rate will have to wait until at least 2009, despite the threat of a growing shortfall in the budget.

During its June 26 meeting, the city's Management and Finance Committee ruled out proposing a 0.25-percent hike in the city's current tax rate on November's ballot. The increase would have brought in about $9 million in additional operating funds for 2009, and had been discussed as a way to address a developing gap between the city's revenue and its expenditures.

"If this is something the committee wants to do, I think it should be discussed for a ballot question in (2009) at the earliest," said committee chair and Councilman Brad Pierce.

Committee member and Councilman Steve Hogan took a pessimistic view of the proposal.

"We've had everybody tell us that we have a structural revenue problem and that we are in trouble because we rely very heavily on sales tax ... and yet, the only proposal that we've got is to increase sales tax. That doesn't make any sense," Hogan said.

While the committee failed to pass the tax increase on to council, several members addressed the underlying budget gap. Particularly, the committee discussed the ratio for police officers of two per 1,000 residents, a number that is written into the city's civil code. According to the city's finance department, the two per 1,000 proportion alone is expected to contribute to a deficit of $13.9 million for 2008 and $15.2 million for 2009.

"I would come to the opinion, by looking at these figures, that the majority of our shortfall is definitely caused by our two-per-thousand (funding mandate)," committee member and Councilwoman Renie Peterson said. "Crime is down, citizens want to feel safe, but maybe of asking for a (tax) increase of 0.25 (percent) is not the solution," Peterson said, suggesting that the officer ratio be re-examined and possibly amended.

Hogan disagreed, stating that the city should look for other solutions to the budget problem.

"Most other big cities actually have a ratio that is more than two per thousand ... In my opinion, it's a red herring to say that (the mandate) is the problem with our budget," Hogan said. "There is a whole host of other things that either we haven't done, or we haven't looked at doing, or that we should do that would ease the problem a lot better than getting rid of (the mandate)."

Instead, Hogan suggested looking at other sources, including the city's reserves.

"The city isn't broke. If you eliminate the wastewater and water fund balances, the city of Aurora still has $87 million in reserves ... We say we want reserves for bond ratings and bad times. We've done what the Legislature has failed to do in Colorado, which is create a rainy day fund," Hogan said. "Now it's a rainy day, and nobody wants to spend the rainy day fund. That doesn't make any sense to me.

"I wouldn't begin to say that we spend all of our reserves, but you can do the quick math. If we've got a $9 million problem for 2009, even if we decided to take all $9 million out of our reserves ... we're only taking one-nineth from our reserves."

The committee agreed to send the question to the upcoming fall budget workshop, where the council could devote a significant amount of time exploring the options. Questions of capital projects would also be considered.

"We take the first appropriate, available workshop, not a study session, and not an hour at a workshop, but the time that's needed to sit down and talk about what are we going to do, why are we going to do it, then if we can come up with something, see if we can't put that proposal through parts of the community that would be interested," Hogan said.

Negotiations Update 6/17/2008

I just got off the phone with our attorney who has been in contact with the city negotiator.  I believe the quote from the city was something like…..”We have a system to resolve disputes and we should not feel too badly……”  In other words, the City is not willing to negotiate, go back to the table, or any other term you can think of using.  WE ARE GOING FORWARD WITH ARBITRATION!!!!!  This is not what we wanted but the city has given us no other avenue……. other than taking a NO PAY RAISE FOR 2 YEARS, ALMOST NO BENEFIT INCREASE FOR 2 YEARS, AND REDUCTION OF SICK LEAVE BUY OUT!!!!  AND THESE ARE JUST THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THEIR GENEROUS OFFER. 

As you can probably tell, I am absolutely disgusted with the city and ashamed to say I work for this place.  The team spent almost 60 days and countless UNPAID hours working on our proposal and the city did not negotiate, nor do they have any intention of negotiating.  We have already spent over $5,000.00 on attorney fees and the negotiator rate is $1200.00 per day plus all expenses.  The total cost will probably be around $30,000.00. 

Is this how the city shows how much they love and respects us.  The next time you hear a council member or city administrator say how much the respect us….. how they want to work together…..they don’t mean it…… they are blowing smoke.  Talk is cheap.

I will write more later when I calm down!!!

Randy