Colorado Springs City Election Presents Hard Choices

The results are in, and Colorado Springs voters have taken a hard line against any kind of increase, or even maintenance of city tax revenue. We are a little famous for being very anti-tax here, so in some ways this should be no surprise. However, it does present some ‘interesting’ decisions for the city council, seeking to balance a budget that has been hit hard by decreasing sales tax revenue. Of course, all the fun stuff gets paraded out to the chopping block first (parks and bus service for instance). Police and fire salaries, whether by headcount, furlough, or layoff tend to be next. Street maintenance is never far behind, although since they are already doing so little in that area it isn’t that productive. Usually not mentioned are mayor and city council salaries (or size), wonder why? My personal hope is that the city will figure out some good creative ways to avoid cutting back things like park maintenance, we have some of THE best parks in the country!
I’m kind of glad Congress is getting serious about extending the 1st Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, both in time and scope. There is still some discussion going on, but I’ll cover this when the final version passes, maybe by tomorrow? The extension of the program to some existing homeowners is particularly exciting.
We may set warm weather records 3 days this week, with another day in the 70’s for today, pretty great for November! I’ll take it, we had snow last week to offset it!
Got questions about living in Colorado Springs? Call me at 719-590-4768 or 888-568-6784! Visit me on Facebook to see even more photos!