(La Junta, CO) -- La Junta City Council voted on a second reading at Monday night’s meeting to approve the request for supplements to the 2024 city budget. City Attorney Erin Harris said the supplement requests are on the second reading of a resolution to approve for the following departments:
General Fund
Internal Service Fund
Electric Fund
Water Fund
Wastewater Fund
Sanitation Fund
Maureen Rikhof responded to the request.
“I’m am pro transparent budgeting process.”
“To me, this is about transparency. It’s not about anybody not doing their job. It’s not about not getting trash trucks, it’s not about trying to save money by buying equipment at auctions. I understand the money is in the reserve for those two departments. It’s about the city council having a budget that we vote on in November that is transparent, and it put together as well as it can be in a way that the city can expect going forward for the next year.”
It’s especially important because reserves have been declining. She mentions the city got a “save” when voters approved 2A, a sales tax increase, in 2023. Rikhof told the council that they could not ask for more tax money. We have to live within our means.
“We need to know what our city’s financial position looks like as clear as possible.”
Brad Davidson, acting city manager, added, “I’ve given very strong focus that just because 2a passed, that doesn’t mean we have a bunch of cash coming in; we still need to live within our means.”
“Don’t expect any big budget increases.”
Mayor Joe Ayala added that the budget is a living document. “Things come up that we did not plan for and that we did not see coming. Water main breaks with our water department are just a killer when that happens.”
La Junta City Council voted on the supplements' second reading, which passed 4-to-1.
The discussion can be watched at time code 42:05 in the below link.
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Anne Boswell, anneboswell@coloradonewsyourway.com
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