By David Grant Long

A "conservative" budget ordinance containing expenditures of nearly $17 million for the coming year was approved on first reading Tuesday by the Cortez City Council, which spent several evenings last month sorting out priorities with the various municipal departments.

"We have limited the amount of growth to 3.5 percent in order to be conservative with our resources," explained City Manager Hal Shepherd in his budget message to the council. "This budget is more constrained than in past years, with the major reason being the employee pay raise, which was needed to bring up the salaries to be competitive with other Colorado cities.

"Historically, we have been on the bottom of the Colorado Municipal League salaries for all jobs," he added. The city’s overall payroll will increase approximately $400,000, or 7.7 percent, to nearly $5.5 million next year under a plan adopted by the council last year to bring employees’ salaries into the median range of comparable towns. No new employees will be hired under the proposed budget, however.

Growth of sales-tax revenue, which supplies most of the money in the general fund, was also conservatively estimated at 6.5 percent even though it is currently running at about 9 percent for the first 10 months of 1999.

The budget expenditures represent a $2.4-million decrease -- mostly in capital-construction funding -- from this year, which saw a major expansion at the city service center as well as the completion of Parque de Vida.

Still, the scaled-back budget contains funding for two other major capital improvements -- $1.6 million toward an expansion of the cramped municipal library and about $1.1 million for installing a fiber-optic loop to provide high-speed telecommunications to the community, although this project still has many details to be ironed out and would require a change in the city charter that would have to be approved by voters in April. The library project, which will double its size, should be completed by next December, according to Shepherd, and additional private funding will be sought from businesses and individuals.

The initial phase of remodeling City Hall will also be done next year, and $170,000 is budgeted for renovating the former offices of two departments that have largely moved to the service center to create two conference rooms.

"Since employees spend a third of their lives in the workplace," Shepherd observed, "it certainly is necessary to upgrade the surroundings of this 1950s building."

The following year, the east end of City Hall will be demolished and a new wing that will include council chambers on the first floor will be added, he explained, allowing easier access for the disabled.

Small but as yet undetermined increases in water rates are recommended in the budget to maintain adequate reserve funds for expansion. Improvements to the water-treatment plant and distribution system are budgeted at $323,000 over the next two years.

A modest increase in trash-collection fees may also be expected to cover the rate hike at the county landfill and the rising costs of the municipal recycling program, set at $70,000 for 2000 and $74,600 in 2001.

Other areas of spending outlined in the two-year budget cycle include:

¥ Nearly $1 million from the airport fund to acquire land and relocate a portion of County Road F that now runs too close to the runway and for other improvements and equipment.

-- Two new police cruisers and a $80,000 dump truck next year, as well as two police cruisers, a backhoe and a street sweeper the following year.

-- A $200,000 shop for the park maintenance workers and $87,000 toward the rehabilitation of Denny Lake, which finally has a year-round water source that can be piped into it.

-- Street improvements amounting to just over $2 million, including the reconstruction and overlay of Empire Avenue from end to end and the extensions of Park and Driscoll streets as well as the acquisition of rights-of-way to extend Sligo Street south and connect with Seventh Street.

The budget also includes $24,500 to support the Main Street Association; $230,000 annually for the city’s tourism contract with the Montezuma County Economic Development Council and another $60,000 to fund the MCEDC’s economic-development efforts; and $207,000 for the city pound, of which Montezuma County has agreed to pick up 20 percent. (Shepherd pointed out that half the dogs and cats taken there are from the unincorporated areas of the county, and said he hoped to arrive at a more equitable cost-sharing arrangement by 2002.)

Shepherd, who took over as city manager last summer, stressed the critical need for acquiring sites for business and industrial development to continue the area’s economic growth and expressed surprise that none were presently available.

"Our foremost goal is to acquire land for business- and industrial-park development," he said. "Without raw land available, we will not have much success.

"With new business and industrial sites, we will concentrate on marketing our community for higher-paying jobs for our citizens."