By Lauren Heil
FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Fort Collins city council met Tuesday evening to discuss a recommended budget for 2011-2012. This workshop, which was the third meeting out of four, continued discussion of the budget, focusing on the topics of economic health, high performing government and environmental health. Council members examined the various pieces of the budget, including groups and services throughout the city from which funding needs to be restricted.
Mike Freeman, the chief financial officer for Fort Collins, explained the city’s main source of revenue comes from a general fund and transportation. Many services are decreasing in funding or not being funded at all due to a decrease in both of these sources.
A major area of concern was neighborhood watch, as its funding is dropping due to the budget cut.
Captain Jim Szakmeister explains, “Neighborhood watch and false alarms make up 30% of the job, there will no longer be an attendant to cross check alarms and keep police from dispatching to false alarms.” The result is a higher expense for alarm companies.
Ballot 2B was covered in detail for its promise of “alternative sources of revenue.” City council members could not be reached for further comment.
The city is also looking at an increase in lodging tax. With a possible increase to 9.7%, the city would benefit from the revenue greatly. According to some estimates, the increase would increase revenue by $18.5 million.
Tourism was closely examined in discussion of economic health, as it is a main source of revenue. According to Councilman Jim Clark, “Visitation is quite good. We have, however, experienced shorter stays, and people watching their money more closely. It will be a slow growth and it won’t be until probably 2013 until we see numbers like we did in 2007.”
Clark suggested more efficient ways of getting people information as a solution including more Internet based means of communication. Ken Mannon, Operation Services Director raised concerns for the funding of construction projects.
I liked the flow of your story a lot! You did a good job at moving from one topic to the other clearly and I liked that how your introduction was very informative and definitely followed the inverted pyramid outline. I think that the last paragraph should sum up a little more it just seemed like you stopped talking. Good quotes and good at explaining complex issues in simple terms!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this article. It was easy to follow and had solid quotes and solid facts to back it up. I thought that you did a great job at condensing the information and presenting it in simple terms. Your intro was good at presenting exactly what you were going to talk about. The only thing I would change would be to space out the quotes a little more, some of the blocks of text seemed a little long. Overall, great job.
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