The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Another ‘death by a thousand cuts?’
By Mark Reaman
With no great enthusiasm, the Crested Butte town council is looking at possibly increasing the mill levy for the street and alley fund anywhere from one to three mills along with asking staff to dig deep to see if cost savings can be accomplished with street and alley maintenance. An increase of three mills would cost property owners $189 a year for every $1 million in assessed valuation for residential property. Commercial property would get tagged $811 for every $1 million in valuation.
The discussion came up at an October 21 work session on the 2025 budget. Voters have given the town the ability to charge up to 16 mills but currently only eight are collected. Looking out five years, the current revenues would not cover the existing schedule of road maintenance, so staff is asking council how best to alleviate the problem without raiding the town’s general fund to cover costs of street replacement and repair.
Town has traditionally collected the street and alley property tax, done regular maintenance and then started a major project every five years. But the costs of the major projects is skyrocketing. In 2017 a 13-block street improvement project cost $461,500 while in 2024 a similar eight-block project cost $1.3 million. Public Works director Shea Earley asked the council if they would be comfortable using $1.5 million every five years for the major projects saying the $1 million expenditure wasn’t enough while even spending $1.5 million would barely keep up with needed replacements.
Staff investigated whether having snow removal crews not hit the streets until 6-inches of snow fell instead of going out after 3-inches would save money and it was determined that it would not in the long run.
Council did agree with staff to hold off on purchasing an expensive electric dump truck for at least a year. That move would save $400,000 and town will apply for a grant to help offset that cost in 2025.
“While $189 isn’t a huge amount, I keep getting feedback from people that they are experiencing death by a thousand cuts,” said councilmember Jason MacMillan.
“Last year the property tax bill we received through the county was big and so this mill levy increase would hurt,” agreed councilmember Mallika Magner.
“That is all on top of a 50% increase in water fees last year. It definitely feels like death by a thousand cuts to live in town. Costs to live in Crested Butte keep rising and that impacts long-term residents,” said Magner.
“But we need our streets and alleys to function,” said MacMillan.
Mayor Ian Billick asked staff to look at the impact of deferring or eliminating some expenses like the installation of a $600,000 DC Fast electric charger over the next five years. “Would the equivalents of dropping the electric versions of the dump truck and sweeper, along with not doing the fast charger, be sufficient to allow us to balance the streets and alleys fund while increasing the streets and alleys mill assessment by two mills instead of three mills?” he asked.
“Could we perhaps do the major paving projects and street replacements every six or seven years instead of every five to help?” asked councilmember Beth Goldstone, who noted that maintaining streets instead of doing major replacements might have less of a carbon impact as well.
Town manager Dara MacDonald said staff could analyze those ideas.
“We have a lot of options,” said Billick. “But I don’t want to drive up the cost of long-term maintenance. I don’t want to save a dime only to spend a dollar later.”
“I agree. That’s one reason the water fees went up so much at once,” said councilmember Gabi Prochaska. “It is better to step up the costs of what needs to be done.”
It was suggested that a mill levy increase could be phased in over time, so a big hit was not felt all at once.
MacMillan also suggested the town provide some financial assistance to those who might not be able to afford the mill levy increase.
Billick asked staff to analyze all the options and see what a two and a three mill levy increase would mean for revenues and impact to citizens.
“Can we see what a one mill increase would do as well?” asked Magner. “I’m not ready to go to a two mill increase. I want to see all the options and see where we can trim expenditures.”
“It is a hard discussion when you start talking about cutting services,” said MacDonald. “So be prepared.
Responding to Magner on a related issue, Earley said the major redevelopment of the Elk Avenue streetscape wasn’t happening in the near future. He said that project would come when water and sewer infrastructure on Elk needed to be replaced and recent analysis determined that could be put off until at least 2031.
According to Earley’s report to council, 88% of town streets are in fair to excellent condition at the moment.
The staff will return with more information for the council to consider as the budget deliberations continue through the fall.
