June 20, 2019
Council Discusses Infrastructure Plan
The Loveland City Council continued its discussion of the 2020 city budget on June 11 with a presentation on the City’s draft 10-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The CIP lays out the priority plan for funding capital projects, currently equaling about $77 million of investment. The first year of the plan will be adopted as part of the city’s 2020 budget, which will be considered this fall.
Among the plan’s project priorities so far, are city facility maintenance, phase two of the Pulliam Community Building’s reconstruction, open lands acquisition and development and road projects. Projects on the list that, per the plan, will be fully funded in 2020 include $3.1 million for a new 12-acre neighborhood park at the Willow Bend Natural Area in southeast Loveland; $1.9 million for improvements to 37th Street between U.S. 287 and Dry Creek; and a traffic calming study of Cleveland Avenue.
Unfortunately, staff says their analysis shows that the General Fund can only provide $6.4 million for 2020. In 2019 for example, the GF transfer was $8.7 million. In addition, the remaining TABOR Excess reserve balance of $537,139 will be fully extinguished in 2020 (dollars that citizens have allowed the City to retain in excess of “TABOR limits”). The City has many transportation projects on the “horizon” list (2020-2029) that are currently unfunded to the tune of $137,286,507 as well as other unfunded projects related to other topics.
Some of the City’s unfunded capital projects will be financed if the proposed .5 percent sales tax increase AKA “Your City, Your Future Community Improvement Program” passes this November. To review, those projects include a new rec center, a library branch, fire station renovations and the construction of a new fire station, the museum expansion, and transportation projects on US 34 and Taft.
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