The Denver City Council on Monday approved the city’s $1.9 billion budget for 2017, but council members say there’s unfinished business: finding more money to help fix sidewalks citywide.
And Mayor Michael Hancock now says he is willing to explore more concrete ideas.
The 2017 operating budget, unveiled by Hancock in September and approved 12-0 on Monday, will pay for four dozen new police officers and an expanded affordable housing program. It also sets aside $2.5 million for new or fixed sidewalks on city-owned property, such as parks and golf courses.
But while that sum is a new offering from the Hancock administration, it won’t address crumbling or missing walks that front homes, businesses and other private property across the city.
The council has focused heavily on the topic this year, with a working group probing potential ways to help low-income property owners address sidewalk gaps. Under city ordinances, the onus now is on private property owners to install and maintain their sidewalks.
That distinction has resulted in deteriorating pavement and persistent pathway gaps, even in well-off neighborhoods. And enforcement, which would saddle homeowners with the cost of repairs or installation, has been lax.
Hancock has signaled recently that he’s open to discussing ideas such as a homeowner assistance program. That prompted Councilman Paul Kashmann to hold back on attempting to push through a budget amendment on the floor two weeks ago.
“While it’s still a little early to start dancing, it’s slowly, but surely, appearing to me that Mayor Hancock is poised to become the first chief executive of Denver to address the full breadth of needs that must be met to make Denver a truly walkable city,” Kashmann said then.
In coming months, a mayoral spokeswoman confirmed, city staff members and council members will form a committee to explore potential programs — and how the city might raise money to help offset some property owners’ costs. It’s a problem that has been valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars across the city, and ideas range from voluntary or mandatory sidewalk frontage fees to city borrowing.
“The city committed to bringing appropriate agency representatives together to evaluate possible tools to assist homeowners in the city with the cost of sidewalk maintenance and repair,” spokeswoman Jenna Espinoza wrote Monday in an e-mail. “The structure and logistics of this group are still being determined.”
The council faced pressure to address sidewalk gaps during an Oct. 24 public hearing on the budget, including from Walk Denver executive director Gosia Kung.
“Just sidewalks alone — $2.5 million is just a drop in the bucket for a need that’s right now estimated at $475 million,” Kung said. “So we would like to encourage City Council and the mayor to take bold action and dedicate more funding — and find new funding sources — to support our pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, so that we can live up to our aspiration of being a healthy and active city.”
Before Monday’s budget vote, Kashmann reiterated: “The task ahead of us, to really make our city safe and walkable for all ages, is one that needs a far greater commitment than we’re making at this point.”
Several council members cited other unmet needs in the budget, including a desire for more police officers than proposed. But the 2017 plan generally met with positive reception.
Hancock, in a statement issued after the vote, said the budget tackles several challenges facing city residents. “But more than that, this budget strives to bring prosperity and opportunity within everyone’s reach,” the statement said. “This budget adopted tonight is a road map for responsibly focusing our work on the issues that we most care about and will do the most good securing a bright future for every resident. That is something we can all be proud of working toward.”
Flush city reserves and another healthy increase in sales tax collections amid a booming economy again enabled Denver’s budget-writers to include targeted expansions. Among them is the council’s request to increase its own budget by $1.3 million, or 29 percent, to pay for more aides and outreach activities in each of the 13 council members’ offices.
Overall, the city’s operating budget is set to increase by nearly 4.9 percent next year. The $1.3 billion general fund portion will increase by 4.6 percent.
For Hancock and several council members, a highlight is $15 million budgeted for the first infusion of cash into a new dedicated affordable housing fund that’s aimed at raising $150 million in the next decade to help pay for projects. About $10 million is expected to come from property taxes and new development impact fees charged to developers, with $5 million added from city reserves, including marijuana taxes, as a first-year supplement.
Hancock’s budget also will add nearly two dozen more child-welfare caseworkers and will increase funding by $16 million for safety agencies, including the hiring of 48 police officers to help offset expected retirements. Sixteen of them will focus on the 16th Street Mall and the central business district.
The understaffed 911 call center will get more money to hire civilian employees, and Denver police will buy more body-worn cameras to enable officers to wear them when they work off-duty security jobs in uniform.
Other changes: extended summer hours at five outdoor swimming pools; three full-time enforcement agents devoted to ticketing disability parking violations in off-street lots; and a $19 million boost in street improvements, including more bike lanes.
An additional $3.3 million is budgeted for more recycling and composting routes and to finish the conversion of trash pickup to a cart system; $650,000 for the mayor’s new Office of HOPE (Housing and Opportunities for People Everywhere), charged with coordinating housing policy across departments; and $500,000 for a new wastewater affordability program for some low-income ratepayers.
At the council’s request, Hancock last month agreed to several changes that included more composting routes and $500,000 for safety-oriented improvements to a half-dozen or more intersections in outlying parts of the city.