Pat Lewis, President of the Boulder Area Chamber of Commerce, was the only attendee at Monday night’s city budget hearing other than the Monitor reporter.
Mayor Rusty Giulio said cuts to the budget allowed for an increase in cash reserves from about $86,000 (roughly ten percent of the general fund budget) to around $180,000, or 24 percent. That is a step in the right direction, he said. Many of the cuts came in the form of extending projects out over more than one year.
Included in the budget: plans to replace the swimming pool boiler, partly with the help of a fundraiser; leaving one planned police officer position vacant, leaving only two on the force; increasing the wage of the assistant city clerk from $9 to $12 per hour and expanding her hours slightly; fencing one side of the cemetery with the rest to be done in later budgets; upgrading bathrooms in the city parks one park at a time with the rest in later budgets; and trimming other line items that were not used in the past budget.
No funding for dealing with junk vehicles is included in the budget, said Giulio.
Council members asked Clerk Ellen Harne to seek and provide some clarification on carryover items such as the capital improvement fund and on expenditures for the downtown master plan.
The city officials will continue to accept input on the budget until their final budget adoption meeting set for 7 a.m. Friday, August 31.
