City Council talks 2027 budget

The Gunnison City Council held a public hearing on the city’s 2027 budget at its Nov. 10 meeting, receiving comments from one resident and discussing various aspects of the budget.

City Manager Amanda Wilson and Finance Director Ben Cowan opened the hearing by summarizing the city’s budget process and the proposed 2027 budget.

Wilson began by summarizing the budgeting process, which she said started at the end of May and involved forecasting future revenues, costs, and capital projects; public outreach; and multiple sessions with the council throughout the process.

Following the public hearing, which Wilson said was a “valuable” opportunity to gather public feedback and for the council to ask additional questions, the budget will go through two readings before adoption. She said that the first reading for the budget ordinance is scheduled for Nov. 17.

Wilson said that the forecasted revenue increases associated with rate changes for the city’s water and wastewater utility are incorporated into the budget. However, she said the exact form of these changes is still to be determined by council and that the budget could be adjusted to incorporate any alterations.

She said that public, staff and council feedback for the budget converged on five common themes, including fostering economic prosperity, maintaining affordability, prioritizing infrastructure, acting fiscally responsibly and growing public trust and engagement. Wilson added that these themes align with the city’s strategic framework.

Building an effective budget depends on balancing multiple factors, Wilson said, including relatively slow revenue growth that is outpaced by cost increases, the need for long-term stability and the future impacts of delaying capital projects.

“We have collectively done our best to represent a budget that is balanced and responsible,” she said. “Maintaining existing services is the number one priority versus adding new.”

Cowan explained that the city’s proposed budget is balanced in accordance with state law, which requires expenditures to be supported by current revenues or the planned use of the fund balance.

He said that most of the city’s revenues come from service charges, which supply more than half of the city's funds, and that these would increase in 2027, driven by water projects.

The total budget is slightly less than $50 million, Cowan said, with spending on staff increasing due to higher health insurance and other costs, while spending on capital projects decreases somewhat.

Most spending categories of the budget remain similar to 2026, he said, adding that public works makes up 65 percent of the budget in 2027.

He said out of the $50 million in the city budget, only $2.8 million out of this can be spent fully at the discretion of the council, with the rest of the funds bound into specific purposes due to coming from utility rates, originating from ballot measures that restricted money raised to specific purposes or other restrictions.

Cowan said that sales tax collections are forecast to be up 2 percent in 2027, compared with 2.5 percent in 2026.

Wilson said that the city would not add any “new humans” in 2027, although some part-time staff would receive more hours due to increased needs, along with some shifts and reductions in other staff hours.

Cowan said that, following an extensive analysis, the city decided to provide staff a 2 percent cost escalation or cost of living adjustment. Costs for health insurance also grew 7 percent for the 2027 budget, he said, leading to a total cost increase of $268,000 when combined with the wage adjustments.

The 2027 budget includes a variety of “key projects,” he said, including design for various street maintenance and improvement projects and a range of water infrastructure improvements, among others.

Wilson highlighted that funding for the development of a transportation master plan is included in the 2027 budget, which she said would help guide other projects and investments and build on previous work by the city.

She said that the budget also included a variety of items that were not included or were reductions from previous budgets. “Many of the items on this list have been needs for some time and they just are on that list of ‘Hey, we’re gonna need this … but right now we simply don’t have the funds to move many of these forward,”

Wilson said that the budget also included reduced support for a variety of local organizations, including a 20 percent cut to funding for the Gunnison Chamber of Commerce, a cut in funding for the Gunnison Economic Partnership and an elimination of funding for ICELab.

She said the city also included various items that will move forward only if it secures grant funding.

Mayor Diego Plata asked what discretionary funds are available to the council, which Wilson said primarily include economic development funding for organizations and city-supported events, as well as some police and fire funding.

Mayor Pro Tem Marisela Ballesteros expressed her appreciation for the “clean” and clear presentation of the budget and for their work.

Councilor Matt Schwartz thanked staff and said that he believed that the budget reflected the priorities of the council and the community.

Councilor Loren Ahonen thanked staff for their efforts to answer his technical questions about the budget.

Councilor Audrey Zahradka also thanked staff, adding, “Cuts are never easy, and I think that staff was as equitable as possible with what had to be done.”

The council then heard the sole public comment on the budget, from Kathy Weber-Alt.

Weber-Alt explained that she used to work at the Gunnison Valley Chamber of Commerce and still volunteers there. She said that she was concerned about the proposed redesign of the visitor center to focus on providing a meeting space, saying, “We already have places for groups to gather … what we don’t have in abundance is a central location where residents, college students and visitors can receive knowledgeable, personalized information about our valley.”

She said she believed the Chamber’s primary challenge was that it is not sufficiently well known, not the quality of its services, and that efforts should focus on “expanding its reach” instead of changing its “primary purpose.”

Ahonen asked staff to consider further partnerships with the Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation District (MetRec) supporting senior programming as a way to obtain additional grant funds.

Wilson said the city has had “initial conversations” with MetRec about developing partnerships, although she said funding related to this would likely not be included in the proposed budget since it is uncertain what the funding would be at this point. However, she added that the budget could be amended later to incorporate any future partnerships with MetRec.

Ahonen also responded to the comment from Weber-Alt, saying that the changes at the visitor center were partially driven by significant drops in visitor numbers, which also appeared to drive staffing changes at the center.

He said that decisions about how to use the Chamber’s facilities and perform outreach may not be the council’s purview to “dictate to the Chamber” and may be the choice of the Chamber Board of Directors instead.

Plata said that he agreed with Ahonen’s comments and that staffing choices at the Chamber are likely not a council decision.

Ahonen also said that he has concerns about the capacity of the city’s proposed water treatment plant and its correlation with rate increases for customers and increases in water demand in Gunnison.

Wilson said these issues would be discussed extensively at a council work session on water plant design, to be held on Nov. 17 at 3 p.m.

She also said projects included in the budget, such as any water system changes, would have to be approved by council before moving forward, and that these changes would have to go through multiple “checkpoints” with council before being finalized.

Schwartz said that he looked forward to the discussion of plant capacity but that it should likely wait until the Nov. 17 work session to allow staff to be prepared with the relevant information.

“Absolutely,” said Ahonen.