Gunnison County finalizes its 2024 budget with public hearing

A big year for deferred maintenance on infrastructure

By Katherine Nettles

Gunnison County commissioners hosted a public hearing for their draft 2024 budget on Tuesday evening, December 5, and despite holding the evening session to better accommodate attendees with daytime conflicts, it was met without public commentary. The total expected county budget for the coming year is just under $91 million, with anticipated revenues at $90,714,000 and anticipated expenditures at $92,112,000, which represents totals for personnel, operations and capital projects. The budget does not include that of Gunnison Valley Health, which manages its own budget and submits it to the county for approval.

County finance director Perry Solheim highlighted some key changes this year. All county employees will receive a 5.5% cost-of-living wage adjustment, health insurance costs are expected to remain level, sales tax revenue is expected to increase by 8.5% and several fund balances are being drawn down to address deferred maintenance and capital projects. 

“The budget is going to reduce our overall fund balance,” said Solheim. ““I’m hoping that the public understands that what we’re trying to do is make sure we don’t have fund balances that are bigger than we need them to address longer term strategic objectives and/or to have money set aside for a rainy day or an economic downturn such as 2008. But we’re also looking at ways, like what we’re planning with phase two of Sawtooth, of lending money from the general fund to finance housing projects that represent an important Gunnison County strategic objective. It allows us to really put the taxpayers’ funds to work.”

Revenues

Water and sewer rates are going up 4% and landfill rates are going up 4% as well, with the idea that incremental increases will prevent any major changes as infrastructure is upgraded and provider costs increase.

Tax revenue is predicted to total $28.2 million across all sectors. 

“Property taxes are to be levied at a roughly 5.5% increase in revenue,” according to the accompanying memo from Solheim, and “sales taxes are meeting expectations in the 2023 budget. Inflation and strong economic activity, coupled with improving sales tax collections, combine to warrant continued increase in sales tax estimates.”

Other forms of revenue include licenses and permits, charges for services, fines and forfeitures and investment income and intergovernmental contributions and grants totaling $27.4 million. 

Expenditures

The estimates for expenditures are almost $24 million for the general fund; almost $7 million for the road and bridge fund; $6 million for health and human services; $14.4 million for the housing authority fund; $4.1 million for the local marketing district; $6 million for the airport operations fund; $6.2 million for the RTA and $4.3 million for the vehicle fleet fund. Other expenditures, such as water, sewer, solid waste, technology, health insurance, risk management, sage grouse, mosquito control, land preservation, public health and debt service funds, are budgeted to expend between $100,000 and $2.5 million each.

Capital expenditures for 2024 are expected to total $24.1 million and account for substantial grant funds the county has secured for many of its projects. Those capital expenditures include improvements to the Gunnison County fairgrounds ($662,000), the juvenile services building ($100,000), work on the Brush Creek intersection ($160,000), Slate River Bridge engineering ($350,000), Kebler soil work ($100,000), repairing Washington Gulch culverts ($65,000), Gunnison Whitewater Park improvements ($560,000), Shady Island pavement resurfacing ($75,000), Crested Butte vehicle shop renovations ($542,000), airport ramp rehabilitation and rails ($4 million), wastewater facility maintenance ($91,000), water infrastructure system upgrades and repairs ($346,000), landfill shop relocation ($250,000) and $14.3 million for various housing projects. 

Housing projects include finishing Sawtooth I landscaping and final details ($100,000), constructing Sawtooth II ($11 million) and engineering/planning for the Whetstone development ($3.1 million). Vehicle fleet expenditures for various county departments amount to $1.7 million.

There were, as in recent years, no members of the public in attendance or online via Zoom, and there was therefore no public comment during the hearing. Commissioners Laura Puckett Daniels and Liz Smith offered appreciation for the work that has gone into the three budget drafts thus far before closing the public hearing, and commissioner chair Jonathan Houck was absent in order to attend a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sage grouse management meeting. Commissioners will consider budget approval with a few minor corrections to the final draft on December 12. 

The the entire budget draft can be found at  https://www.gunnisoncounty.org/388/Budget.