The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
by Kendra Walker
2020 Budget
The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council went over the Mt. Crested Butte 2020 budget during a work session on October 15.
Big projects for 2020 include Gothic Road work and repairs from Marcellina Lane to Prospect and the extension of the recreation path to Snodgrass, according to finance director Karl Trujillo. “We estimate that to cost about $3,000,000,” he said in an email to the Crested Butte News, with $1,800,000 allocated for road repairs and $1,150,000 for the Rec Path extension. These specific funds were paid to the Town by the Mueller family, which released the Muellers of developer obligations related to the North Village and Prospect properties under an Annexation and Development Agreement from 2002.
In a budget transmittal letter to council, town manager Joe Fitzpatrick stated, “With the combination of the Epic Pass skiers and a good snow year we saw an increase in winter sales tax revenues, but our summer collections remain flat. The 2019 assessed values increased by 23 percent which means 2020 property tax collections will increase by the same amount in both the General and Capital Funds.”
The total estimatead 2020 General Fund expenditures are $3,173,276 and the Capital Projects Fund expenditures are $3,295,000.
Fitzpatrick concluded, “In the 2020 Budget all the Town’s funds are in good financial health. We are being conservative with our Sales Tax projecting a 2 percent increase over 2019.”
Climate action and strategic goals
Town Council agreed to sign a resolution to work toward reducing carbon emissions by 2030 with the Mountain Town 2030 Climate Action Plan. Mountain Town 2030 is a coalition of mountain communities committed to addressing the impacts of climate change.
“It’s a way of binding us into moving forward with climate action,” said mayor Janet Farmer. “We’re committing ourselves to fulfilling our plan because our plan is going to be different that what it would be in Missoula, Montana or Park City.”
Council agreed the resolution is more symbolic than anything but, “we’re putting it out in the universe for everybody to see,” said councilman Dwayne Lehnertz.
Councilman Roman Kolodziej reminded council that they still have a lot of work to do with sustainable goals they have already set as a council. “We have three of four items that we’re supposed to accomplish by the end of 2019 that we haven’t taken action on yet.” Council hopes to address how they’re meeting their environmental strategic goals in upcoming council meetings.
