The San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD) will host a public meeting this evening, Tuesday, November 12, at 5:30pm at their office at 46 Eaton Drive, Suite #5 to allow for a public hearing on the proposed 2020 district budget. Disclosure: I serve on the SJWCD board.
The public is invited to express their opinions on the budget at tonight’s meeting.
The SJWCD budget is a fairly simple document — two pages long, with projected scheduled expenditures of about $72,100 spread out over 26 line items, plus a “contingency” of $21,314. The district budget suggests that SJWCD will end the 2020 fiscal year with about $176,289 in its savings account. You can download the draft budget here. It’s also available on the SJWCD website Home Page.
Because SJWCD is funded by taxpayer dollars — mainly property taxes — the board is required to make its draft budget available to the taxpayers for their review, prior to its adoption, and the board typically adopts the final budget in November or December.
Numerous other local taxpayer-funded entities are currently going through their budget processes. Or so it would appear.
The Town of Pagosa Springs has its most recent 2020 Preliminary Budget posted to their website, here. The Town Council will be discussing the budget this Thursday, November 14 at 5pm at Town Hall, but this is not the official public hearing on the budget. (I’m not yet sure of the hearing date.) The Town government is proposing a slightly larger budget than SJWCD: about $12.9 million in projected expenditures.
Also on Thursday, the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners will be discussing their 2020 budget, at an 8:30am work session at the County Administration Building, 398 Lewis Street. Once again, this is not the official public hearing as required by law.
The County appears to be projecting 2020 expenditures of about $37.8 million in their draft budget, with about $14.5 million going into the General Fund, about $8 million going into Road & Bridge and about $3.8 million going towards a ‘downpayment’ on the new County jail, with various other millions going into other service areas.
Government budgets are often confounding documents — especially, perhaps, in the case of the Archuleta County government. In years past, the Town and County presented the public with a very informative document prior to the official public hearing, and the Town government has continued that tradition. Last month, the Town finance department released a 99-page draft budget document that included 63 pages of detailed explanations about how the money would be used, and what was expected to change from the 2019 budget.
You can download the Town’s informative draft October 1 budget document here. (Large file, may take a while to download.)
The County documentation, in recent years, has been relatively meager. Once upon a time, the County administration department produced a draft budget that was clear and easy to read and understand, similar to what the Town government still gives us. But in recent years, the County has instead released a line-by-line draft that includes no explanations or justifications. You can download that 193-page document here.
In the place of an informative, thorough budget document such as we get from the Town government, the County has released a (less informative) Powerpoint slide show that hits on a few key points in the budget. You can download the Powerpoint here.
One of the more interesting slides in the County presentation concerns the decision by the BOCC to cut funding for Road & Bridge projects out of the General Fund, from the 25% amount we’ve seen since 2015, down to a low of 5%. The reduced Road & Bridge funds will be directed instead into capital projects for the government itself: the new County Jail and a new, proposed Department of Human Services building.
No doubt the simplified Powerpoint slide show is more suitable for a Board of County Commissioners that’s less concerned about financial details.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District held a public hearing on their proposed 2020 budget last month; I’m not sure when the final adoption will take place. Their budget — which is funded mainly by customer fees rather than by tax collections — totals about $10.6 million, spread over four different funds. You can download the 10-page draft budget here.
The Archuleta School District runs on a different fiscal year, from July through June, so they typically hold their budget hearings in May or June. The same budget schedule applied to our local charter school, Pagosa Peak Open School.
When I visited the Pagosa Fire Protection District website this morning — another government entity supported by local property taxes — I was unable to find a draft 2020 budget, or any information about their budget process.
One more local tax-supported entity: the Upper San Juan Library District, better known as the Ruby Sisson Memorial Library. When I visited the Library website this morning, I was able to locate the 2019 budget with total expenses of about $529,000… but I didn’t find a proposed 2020 budget or any information about a public hearing for the 2020 budget.
In the case of the Fire District and the Library District, I imagine you can get budget information by stopping by their offices and asking for it.
My summary for November 12, 2019: Some of our tax-supported organizations are making their budgets and budget processes and budget calendars easily accessible on the Internet. Some, not so much.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.