Remarks by Nancy Henjum
109 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 5
“Excuse me, I'm sorry, my screen is dark, so I can't put, I could ask a question, thank you. Cherie, when you're looking overall at your projections, On sales tax, do you break out sales tax at all by category in terms of your projections when you get down into the weeds of it? Or do you just look across the board?”
“Councilman Hengim? Thank you. Cherie, on the one-time expenses, the first line, and getting those, putting it into those funds, that makes sense to me. But can you just talk a little bit about, like, what's the level that you're trying to keep those reserves at, if you will?”
“Keep it at a healthy balance, if you will? Yes. And without getting too specific, like what defines sort of a healthy balance in those categories?”
“Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, Sheree, just curious, do you have a practice of”
“That's great. Thank you, Carly. And how would you, and I don't know if you want to answer for Carly or Carly wants to answer, but how, like, if you were to grade yourself on, you know, that forecasting, like, how close have you gotten? What's your, I don't know how you measure that, but.”
“Thank you, Madam President. Jen, do you by any chance, these are just straight numbers, do you have an idea of percentage-wise how much closer we're helping our police and fire get to comparison of the front range? As you certainly know, we're losing folks to other departments because we're really behind. for payment for police and fire. So do you know that? Do you have that by percentage, like we're going from, and I know it varies depending on the market, and I know that's a complicated figure, but.”
“okay we know the percent that each rank is moving but i don't know then how far that leaves them away from the market in terms of long-range planning is there a plan to you know like a third the next year and a third the next year or or how are you what's the plan for getting to market rate”
“I'm guessing this is where we need to start talking about revenue increases, yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Jen, for that explanation. And I'm assuming there are probably grants you apply for that maybe don't even make it into your expenditure, or maybe not. But how do you determine what seems more likely to actually put in the budget book for expenditure, given that you don't know?”
“And I recall, and you typically highlight which positions are grant funded. So it's kind of clear for the most part, which things in the budget book are,”
“Thank you. This is a helpful graph and I don't think I see it at least under the expenditure section. Would it be possible for me to just get a copy of this that I can put in my book?”
“I wanna hope that I can stick in here, thanks.”
“Councilman Hingem. Thank you, Madam President. Chief, on the impound lot, can you remind me why there's such a drop in that expense? And also, if we get any revenue from the sale of those cars?”
“Do we, have we ever auctioned those cars and do we still do that?”
“Councilman Hingem. Thank you, Madam President. Randy, I'm going back actually to the 2025 actual, and you dropped in administrative positions about nine, I think, more or less. And so you've had almost a full year now to operate without those, and you're not reinstating those in this budget. Can you just help me understand how you've managed without those? Where has it been like, okay, that was okay? Or where are you really missing?”
“So, yeah. Okay. I think it's important to remember the impact on overall level of service and effort and in the loss of those and. Yeah, okay.”
“I'm not sure exactly what my question is, Randy, You know, as I look at these priorities, and we're talking about the 2027 budget, I just am also really aware of the impacts that aren't necessarily outlined here of not keeping up with call volume, of not retaining and attracting talent, of not addressing those health and wellness, all of these are paramount importance. And Council Member Rainey and I have been meeting with you and with Chief of Staff and with police to talk about these needs from a longer-term perspective. And I just feel like it has to be said, not that there's anything we…”
“Right, right, and the apparatus, and what percentage of your budget would you say is kind of really capital, basically, versus...”
“Okay. And I know those are huge expenses as well.”
“Well, I just wanted to make a statement about it because we have been talking about it, and we're coming up on an election cycle for our municipality. We don't have a tax initiative on the 2027 ballot, but I think it needs to be a part of the conversation for people who are running for mayor and for city council because we have to start. Making it clear that this really is not sustainable.”
“Right. And you may or may not have paid attention to our work session with parks. And, you know, while parks isn't directly so closely associated with safety in the same way. It's a really important part as well. And their situation is pretty dire as well. So we've got some conversations to have. Thank you, Chief.”
“uh thank you madam president i just need to give my fellow council member rain a little heck for not remembering the name of the truck because you did just go to the fire academy he did a pass he didn't want you to bring it up that's great thank you so much thank you all appreciate it”
“Councilman Hincham. Thank you, Madam President. Hi, Skylar. Hi. In the special districts, the SIMDs and GID, is that increased just strictly because of the projection of increased sales tax revenue, or we're not adding any SIMDs or GIDs?”
“Thank you. Just sticking on forestry for just a moment. Do you happen to know, I know the emerald ash borer is a really, really significant concern, and I've talked with Matthew Puckett about kind of long-range plans and saving the trees we can and budgeting long-term for which ones are going to have to come down and so forth. But is there, I guess, what's the amount that forestry will be able to utilize to manage that long-term significant cost that's going to be to the city to manage that problem?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, this isn't Public Works. I'm sorry. You know what?”