The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
First off, I would like to offer my sons a full and unconditional pardon for…well any and everything they might have done since, let’s say, 2005. It just seems right. Too many kids in the car in high school? Unconditional pardon. Being funny with the old Crested Butte Center for the Arts marquee? Not saying you guys were involved but if you were, it was funny as hell, and you get a full pardon. Doing 20 in a 15? Having a beer at the mass high school backcountry campouts? Buying a gun while addicted to crack and lying on the forms? Pardon, pardon and pardon.
A future CB council could be asking for a pardon in a few years when they might have to suddenly do a big bump to town property taxes to take care of the streets. The current council punted this week on the staff request to raise the street and alley mill levy to help cover the increasing costs of street maintenance.
Councilmembers quickly balked at the request for a three mill increase but were considering a one tick raise to ease into what some on council said was inevitable. A one mill increase for the street and alley fund would have cost residential property owners in town about $63 annually for every million dollars in actual property value. So call it a minimum of $126 given current real estate prices or 10 bucks a month or the cost of a beer plus tip at an Elk Avenue restaurant.
Given the reality of the increasing costs to maintain streets, getting a start with one additional mill to protect your car’s suspension from late winter potholes seems prudent. Replacing your shocks or struts probably would cost more than $126.
The council is definitely on the right path to relook at its policy for holding a year’s worth of operational costs in the bank in case of an emergency. Some of that money could be better spent, and backfilling rising street repair costs is a legitimate use for a town “need” versus a political “want.” Frankly, for the town to have to use a year’s worth of emergency funding at current spending levels would mean something is realllllly wrong and zero cash is coming in. If that’s the case, it’s probably something like an asteroid or black swan forest fire so it won’t matter anyway. Dropping that emergency fund operational reserve percentage down to between 50% and 75% seems to be logical and conservative.
Oh, and using some of the beyond budget sales tax revenues makes sense as well. Through October, the town has collected almost $300,000 more in sales tax revenue than it had by this time last year. Part of that is due to Clark’s being closed at the end of 2023 for its remodel but the sales tax revenue is rolling in and has for a while. Yeah, an economic reset is likely out there somewhere, and an emergency fund is important to have, but bonus cash can certainly be used to soften any mill levy increase as grocery prices go up and things like electricity rates jump.
The bottom line is that the council is trying not to slap their constituents with even a small tax hike and the deeper conversation they intend to hold in early 2025 might reset how street maintenance is paid for and sales tax dollars used…all good things. But if not careful, it could result in a sudden painful pop to the wallet instead of a gradual ramp up to fund needed services. The fact that the town has an abundance of cash right now is a luxury that probably won’t always be there. The longer council waits to bump the street maintenance funding source even a little, the harder the decision and the rougher the hit will be.
And pardon me for bringing it up, but Gunnison County will probably put a tax proposal on the ballot next November to raise money for its road and bridges. We will of course look at the details but all of us living in the county will get to help decide whether to increase our taxes for that “need” as well.
And finally, pardon me for wondering out loud‚ but why has it taken so long to get Paradise open after a giant pre-opening day snowstorm and the resort touting a 50-inch base which we sometimes don’t have until January? I’m assuming staffing issues? Not that it matters because the snow on the hill has been great and I love having the lifts spinning, but I’m ready to move on from the Teocalli lift…
—Mark Reaman
