City Manager Releases Balanced Budget With Focus on Critically Vital Services and Community Input About Priorities

As in years past, the biggest impact will be felt within departments and services funded through the General Fund. The General Fund covers most of the critically essential functions a city performs, including public safety, parks and recreation, social services support and homelessness programs. It also covers the costs of all internal support services necessary to manage an organization, such as finance, information technology, legal services, facilities and fleet maintenance and human resources.

The 2027 General Fund Recommended Budget is capped at $200.5 million.

To reach this number, the city had to close a $6.3 million gap in the General Fund, and more broadly, look for efficiencies and opportunities to share resources across all funds.

The most challenging decisions involve staff. The city anticipates reducing a total of 24 positions, including laying off 13 employees and eliminating another 11 vacant positions. Another 12 employees in term-limited positions will leave when their terms expire either at the end of 2026 or sometime in 2027. The city will also leave 8.5 additional vacant positions unfilled until 2028.

Amid these transitions, the organization will also add a limited number of new positions that are reflective of new and emerging needs. Most of these are being covered by repurposed existing funding within specific dedicated funds or offset by existing fees and user charges. The few new roles covered by the General Fund all had to be offset by reduced spending or re-purposed positions within that same budget.

"Decisions that impact people are never easy. I'm incredibly proud of all the employees who, through incredible expertise and dedication, contribute to this amazing community every day," Rivera-Vandermyde said. "At the same time, during challenging times, we must ensure that our constrained resources are going to the services our community counts on most. Sometimes this means leveraging positions for different purposes than we have before."

Reduced staff capacity in some parts of the organization will result in service reductions. Some of the most public-facing of these include:

• Elimination of the photo radar van program
• Reduction in hours at the Scott Carpenter Pool during the "shoulder season" and of some indoor open swim and leisure pool hours during periods with lower demand
• Reduction in ongoing funding for Spruce Pool. (The city will use one-time dollars to keep this pool open for one more year, but funding will not be available for 2028.)
• Elimination of the child watch service at East Boulder Community Center based on underutilization of the program

While programmatic enhancements to the budget are limited, the 2027 Recommended Budget does include some additions that leverage available savings or one-time funding. Examples include:

• An increase of $300,000 to the Wildfire Resilience cross-departmental initiative to help expedite priority strategies including home and property wildfire risk reduction, new building and landscaping standards, and community emergency preparedness; this will bring the tax funding dedicated to this community priority in 2027 to $1.8 million.
• A quantitative community survey, accompanied by a focused engagement strategy to reach communities that are numerically underrepresented through this method, to inform City Council priorities in 2028 and beyond
• Implementation of electronic KnoxBox access/security systems so firefighters and medics can gain access to locked business and multi-family residential buildings more quickly in emergencies
• One-year funding for local vouchers and the Flexible Resolution Program that help unhoused individuals successfully exit homelessness and one-year funding to continue Day Services Center operations
• Ongoing funding for increased eviction prevention through rental assistance, reflecting the economic conditions that are making it hard for lower income residents to stay in Boulder

In addition to offering valuable services and programs, the city also has a responsibility to take care of community facilities and infrastructure, and plan responsibly for the future. Some of the capital projects the city will work on in 2027 include:

• East Boulder Community Center - construction on the Age Well east side will begin in 2027; design for the recreation center side will be underway through 2027
• Renovations to the 1500 Pearl Parking Garage
• New customer service request and tracking (CRM) software
• Flagstaff Road corridor safety and wildfire improvements on open space
• Renovation of the Chautauqua Ranger Cottage and parking area
• Boulder Creek Park & 13^th Street enhancements
• Start of construction for new courts at the East Boulder Community Park & Tom Watson Park
• Refurbishment of North Boulder Park
• 30^th Street (Baseline to Aurora) multimodal improvements
• Replacement of the Violet Avenue Bridge over 4-Mile Canyon Creek
• Completion of the Chautauqua undergrounding project
• Upgrades to the city's two treated water pump stations
• South Boulder Creek Flood Mitigation project
• Construction of Fire Station #2

While the city focused on making reductions and using its existing money strategically to address its shortfall, the 2027 Recommended Budget does include some new sources of revenue.

The most notable of these involves a Transportation Maintenance Fee that was approved as part of the 2026 budget. Paid by property owners, this fee will fund critical needs such as bridge maintenance, pavement management, sidewalk repair and street markings. The city will begin to collect this fee in 2027.

In addition, the city will be adjusting a handful of other fees and taxes. Examples include:

• An increase in recreational marijuana additional tax, from 3.5% to 5.5%, which the city anticipates businesses will charge to consumers. This funding will offset losses Boulder has experienced because of changes to revenues the state was collecting previously and passing on to the city. It will also bring the city in line with other peer communities across the region.
• Utilities rate and fee adjustments to ensure continued financial sustainability of water, wastewater, and stormwater systems. Utility user rates are proposed to increase by 5% for Water, 7% for Wastewater, and 7% for Stormwater and Flood Management; these are lower rate increases than originally anticipated based on Utilities' reprioritization and scaling of planned capital spending levels across the six-year horizon.
• An increase in fees that medical and recreational marijuana businesses pay to be licensed. This recoups the existing cost of service and brings these fees in line with other municipalities along the Front Range. These fee changes are designed to address some of the city's highest priority but unfunded or underfunded needs, based on community input during the past few budget cycles.

All city departments, services and programs rely upon people to run them - and a significant portion of any city's budget goes toward its workforce.

The 2027 Recommended Budget includes compensation, benefits and valuable employee programs - all of which have been designed to keep the city an employer of choice.

The city recently ratified contracts with its three unions. These agreements call for a 5% increase for police and fire-rescue employees; and an increase of 4% for members of the Boulder Municipal Employees Association, which includes many operational and some office positions. The budget also includes merit increases for our non-union employees - who make up a little more than half the workforce - as well as increases to seasonal and temporary staffing to align with the city's minimum wage standards.

City Council will discuss the 2027 Recommended Budget at a study session on Sept. 10, followed by public hearings on Oct. 1 and Oct. 15. Community members are invited to sign up to speak at the hearings. The city's website has more information about how to participate in council meetings.