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Service groups facing hard times
As dollars continue to dwindle, budget hits add up for Durango
Herald Staff Writer
Pray for (no) snow
A major snowstorm like the one the city felt last year could cause trouble for the city of Durango, which is struggling to balance its budget.
The city has $50,000 set aside as a contingency for snow removal, but last year the city had to dip into its reserves and spend $200,000 for snow removal costs.
Snow removal costs to the city add up quickly. Overtime for drivers, maintenance and gas costs are factored in the total, and can balloon when an unexpected storm hits.
City Manager Ron LeBlanc said spending some amount of money removing and hauling snow this winter can’t be avoided.
“There’s no way around it.,” he said.
– Garrett Andrews
And Durango Community Access Television will be going forward without much of its original programming.
Snow removal: Only a quarter of last year's costs are budgeted, in hopes the winter is not as bad as last year.
And funding for community-service groups? The city of Durango is planning to cut that money by nearly a quarter next year.
How much money the city is planning to trim from its budget still is a moving target, but City Manager Ron LeBlanc told councilors Tuesday the cuts must be made.
Playing the role of counselor, LeBlanc offered a shoulder to the council.
"I know you're all feeling a little stress," he told the Durango City Council at the start of the budget-presentation study session. "But this is all new to me, too." For the first time in his 30-year career in municipal management, LeBlanc had to report a sales-tax decline in his annual budget, and he's had to get creative filling a $3 million gap created by declining revenues in the $46 million 2009 budget, through furloughs and layoffs, delayed maintenance and canceled purchases and work orders. All departments have scaled back on supplies.
On Tuesday, LeBlanc said community-service organizations will feel the heat next. Funding for these agencies already has been paid for 2009, but money for 2010 has yet to be approved by the council. The city is budgeting to spend $866,000 on community-service agencies for 2010, about a 24 percent decrease from last year.
The city spent $1.5 million on community-service organizations last year, on services such as fire protection and detox, dues to Region 9 Economic Development District, and paying into charitable organizations such as 4CORE and La Plata Youth Services.
Among the proposed cuts, the city is not planning to fund the Durango Children's Museum next year, nor will it pay in at all to Leadership La Plata, the Mercy Health Clinic or for fireworks for the Fourth of July.
Funding for other community-service agencies has been reduced significantly. The Durango Arts Center will get $20,000 in 2010, or $35,000 less than it did last year. The Fort Lewis College Community Concert Hall will get $20,000, $30,000 less than it received from the city last year. The Animas School Museum will have to make do with $5,000 next year, $12,500 less than it received in 2009.
And, as LeBlanc pointed out at the study session, even small amounts like $5,000 might not be huge in the city's budget, but "that's a bunch of money to them." 4CORE director Aileen Tracy said the lowered funding total will delay plans to start a green-business certification program and will diminish the organization's clout as it applies for grants with a match requirement.
Councilors Michael Rendon and Christina Thompson have said they intend to oppose the cut of funding to the Mercy Health Clinic; Councilors Paul Broderick and Doug Lyon say they'll vote against the proposed cut of fireworks from the budget.
The city has experienced 10 consecutive months of declining sales tax. The dip hit its low point in April, at a 15 percent revenue decline, and is down 9.8 percent for the year. LeBlanc said Tuesday he was happy to report a 5 percent decline for September, the most recent month available.
"The good news is we're not declining as fast as we had been," he said.
The city is hoping it stays that way. Finance Director Julie Brown has budgeted for 5.5 percent declines for 2009's three remaining months.
Durango Cable Access Television, or DCAT, got $42,000 from the city last year to help fund operations, after getting $57,000 each of the previous three years. This year, Executive Director Chris Hall sent a letter to the station's approximately 100 members informing them the station would get just $5,000 from the city next year, representing a "crisis in funding." "What this means for DCAT is a reduction in services," he wrote.
La Plata County pays in $24,000 per year to DCAT, and will do so again this year. Hall expects the station to continue to receive private donations, but without the $37,000 from the city, the station will look very different in 2010.
Hall himself will be gone at the end of December, because, he said, there won't be enough funding for his salary. He said only a part-time programmer, Shawn Ferguson, will remain on payroll, to set the station's schedule.
Classes, outreach and programs on channel 22 will be cut. School board meeting broadcasts and the local current-events program "Eye on Durango" will not be back. Former state Sen. Jim Dyer hosted "Eye on Durango" for four years.
"I leave it to the board to fund us. I've had a good run with it," he said. "I feel worse about the employees the city laid off, compared to the show that I do for free." gandrews@durangoherald.com
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