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Longmont City Council Gives Final Direction on 2020 Budget

On Tuesday, October 1, Longmont City Council held the last discussion and public hearing on the 2020 Budget.
Longmont Civic Center
(Sergio R. Angeles / Longmont Observer)

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

On Tuesday, October 1, Longmont City Council held the last discussion and public hearing on the 2020 Budget.

Teresa Molloy, budget manager, asked for council's direction on the Additional General Fund Property Tax and Marijuana Tax.

City staff recommended that the $665,887 of property tax that was not included in the proposed budget be spent in the following ways:

  1. $15,782 allocated to the Human Service Agency funding to maintain the policy of allocating 2.37% of tax revenues to this purpose
  2. $500,000 be allocated to TRP131 1st and Main Transit Station Area Improvements.
  3. $165,877 to the City Manager's contingency amount

Bullet number 2 would raise the City of Longmont's contribution to the 1st and Main project to $2.5 million. The City has promised to spend a total of $5 million on the project. With the additional funds, the City will have spent a total of $ 3,757,121 leaving $1,242,879 to be budgeted in the future.

Bullet number 3 would be the remainder of the $665,887 of the additional General Fund Property Tax to be allocated to the city manager. These funds are generally spent on feasibility studies on topics that are brought up through the year after the budget has been adopted. The total for this contingency fund would be brought to $315,887.

City staff also sought direction on what council where council wanted to allocate $137,000 of the Marijuana Tax that was unallocated prior to the meeting. They recommended:

  1. $50,000 of continual funding be used for Early Childhood Education
  2. $87,000 be used for the Human Service Agency funding.

The increased $50,000 of on-going funding for Early Childhood Education would bring the yearly budget to $100,000 with an additional one-time gain of $150,000 totally $250,000 in the first year of the program.

The additional funding for the Human Sevice Agency could allow flexibility to use the funds for five additional housing vouchers, additional resources for diversion services for adults experiencing homelessness, additional funding for mental health and addiction treatment services.

Council voted unanimously to accept the recommendations from City Staff.

A public hearing was opened. No one stood up for the public hearing.

City Staff was then directed to draft ordinances and resolutions necessary to adopt the 2020 Budget, 2020-2024 Capital Improvement Plan, 2020 Pay Plan, and the 2020 Financial Policies.