Another baby step discussed in future of parks and recreation funding

Met Rec hamstrung by TABOR at the moment

In an initial joint meeting June 17, the Crested Butte Town Council and the Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation District generally agreed to further explore the idea of working together to potentially ask voters to raise taxes that would benefit recreation funding in the north end of the valley.

But the two boards don’t expect to see any concrete movement on the issue for at least a few years.
The Met Rec board wants to go to the voters first in 2014 to see if they can “de-Bruce” the district under the state’s TABOR regulations. And the board doesn’t want any voter confusion about that issue with another ballot initiative.
Crested Butte mayor Aaron Huckstep told the board that the town was in a pinch with its capital budget, since it is heavily funded through a real estate transfer tax (RETT), and the RETT has been on the decline recently with a slowdown in property sales. “The ebbs and flows of the RETT squeezes not just our Parks and Recreation Department but puts pressure on the other departments as well,” the mayor explained. “One idea we had discussed was to use a sub-district of the Met Rec district to ask voters for a tax in the north end of the valley that would fund parks and recreation up here.”
Huckstep wanted feedback to see if the concept was viable, if the Met Rec board saw any initial challenges and if it was worth pursuing.
Met Rec board member Paul Wayne Foreman asked if the idea was spurred by any one project the council had in mind. Parks and Rec director Jake Jones said while that was the traditional way of asking the board for funds, the town was looking more at cleaning up maintenance costs, which would then clear up funding for more capital projects.
“This isn’t a $25,000, one-time fix,” said Huckstep. “We all know that as you bring more capital projects online—the ice rink is an example—there are annual costs associated with running it.”
“I can’t see us shutting you down out of the box,” said Foreman. “It’s the reason the two sub-districts were formed—to create two logical taxing blocks.”
Met Rec board member Dave McGuire said a sales tax might be the most appropriate route but the council pointed out again that sales taxes in the municipalities were already high.
“One real issue for us at the moment is that we are looking to de-Bruce the district,” said McGuire. “Asking the voters to consider a sub-district tax initiative could interfere with a favorable result on the TABOR issue. Because of the way TABOR is set up, we have been ratcheted down and are now collecting a lot less money. We haven’t done a grant cycle in two years because of that.”
Basically, under Colorado’s TABOR Amendment, government boards are limited in what they can spend based on population and inflation. In a recession, the spending allowed can decrease but when the economy rebounds, the amount of money permitted to be spent doesn’t climb at the same rate. Thus it is “ratcheted down.” However, voters can decide to repeal, or de-Bruce, the provisions and give government boards more flexibility with their funds. That is what the Met Rec district hopes to ask voters to do in 2014.
“We’re proud that we’ve been able to expand the TV service to digital,” added Foreman, “and we utilized $500,000 in federal funds. So we’re sort of in the same boat as you guys right now. We don’t have a lot of money and we don’t have a lot of places we can cut.”
Foreman also said that if a sub-district tax were passed, the district would incur some administrative costs that would have to be paid for. “But first we need to de-Bruce. There’s not an unwillingness with our board. There’s just a lack of ability at the moment. We’d all like to get back to a recreational funding role.”
The town had modeled a two-mill increase for properties in the upper end of the valley from Crested Butte South north. That would raise approximately $516,000. But that would likely have to be somehow divided between other recreation centers like Mt. Crested Butte, Crested Butte South and perhaps even Riverbend or Meridian Lake. Crested Butte’s Park and Rec budget is approximately $370,000 on its own.
Foreman pointed out there were several questions that would need to be answered once the idea became more concrete. “But I don’t see any insurmountable issues,” he said.
Councilperson Jim Schmidt brought in some deep history to the discussion, pointing out that four of the five Met Rec board members were Gunnison-centric. “In the past there have been issues, like on the school board 15 or 20 years ago,” Schmidt said, “where the north end of the valley wanted something but the board was controlled by the south end. What if the north sub-committee said it wanted to fund a climbing wall and the Gunnison board insisted on, say, a gun range?”
“Well that’s a little over the top,” groaned Foreman with the rest of the room. “There are ways to lay out the details. But the board is ultimately responsible to the taxpayers as the elected officials. Frankly, it’s hard to find anyone from the north end of the valley to apply for a seat.”
“There are issues to be ironed out along the way, but we can do it,” said Huckstep.
Jones said there had been some discussion about starting over with a totally new Crested Butte Rec District instead of going the sub-district route. But there are roadblocks to that idea as well.
The two boards agreed in principle that the next step would be to compile a list of potential stakeholders who might be impacted or benefit from a partnership. The two boards will then find a time to get together once again to discuss the idea with a broader range of entities. That likely won’t happen until after summer.
Citizen, recreationalist and Nordic Council director Keith Bauer told the council that the idea of exploring a recreation district focused at the north end of the valley “is a wonderful thing. It could help everyone. I know we have some projects that could use help.”