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At a candidate forum this week, the host asked how I'd make Boulder's budget more transparent and easier to understand. It's a great question. Boulderites want to know their money is handled well, and Boulder has a good foundation to build on. Making local government predictable and effective is one of my top priorities. The heart of that is Boulder becoming financially strong, so it works for everyone, now and in the future. Here's how I think about it after a first term that has included a seat on city council's Financial Strategy Committee. 1. Build a bigger cushion. When the 2001 tech bust hit Boulder, it took years to recover. The lesson was to lean less on sales tax, increase the portion of the budget that is flexible rather than dedicated to specific purposes, and maintain healthy reserves. Past and present councils have built on that. The 2021 facilities plan requires new buildings that are commissioned to set aside money every year to stay in good shape, so a roof gets replaced on schedule, before it fails and costs us more. We should keep developing the systems that strengthen Boulder's balance sheet. One aspect is a public dashboard that shows key indicators of our long-term financial health, how we're doing, and what it will take to improve, giving residents and the council a full picture for decisions. That kind of dashboard would help us better weigh the pros and cons of potential new financing strategies, like a downtown development authority, which could support community-improving investments in Boulder's urban core, but also narrow the allowed uses of voter-approved funds, further restricting the budget. A financial health dashboard is a natural extension of the city's Long-Term Financial Strategy, which will soon be completed. Get this right, and Boulder can absorb a bad year without breaking its promises to residents. 2. Make city services work for people. The reason we budget money is to provide services, like clean water, safe streets, and straightforward permitting. Financial stewardship is about how effectively and efficiently we do it. Yet Boulder has long had a reputation of service challenges. Our town can be a hard place to build in, do business with, and get questions answered about. Turning that around is part of what's behind the city's shift to outcome-based budgeting, which aims to measure spending by results rather than earmarks, something my council has supported further development of. We should back the system upgrades now under way. Boulder’s new Customer Experience effort, years in the making and unveiled at the September 10 study session, brings outcome-based thinking to life. It will simplify how services get delivered, replace aging technology, and open one central place to get help, including a walk-in office at the new City Hall now under construction. It complements efforts to cut red tape and simplify our land use code, work my council cohort has moved forward, and which I expect to keep growing in 2027.
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