ALAMOSA — The 2025 budget for the City of Alamosa breezed through the vote on first reading during Wednesday night’s meeting of the Alamosa City Council and a similar response is anticipated when the ordinance goes up for the final vote at the October 16 meeting.
As City Manager Heather Sanchez explained to council members in her presentation, the city is focused on five key areas – housing, public safety (including police and fire), infrastructure, economic development and recreation.
If the amount of funding allocated in the budget is the measuring stick for the importance of an area, excluding grants, public safety and street maintenance require the greatest investment. But Sanchez was quick to qualify that focus on those key areas goes far beyond budget allocations. “Those are the areas where the majority of attention, energy, discussion, ‘brain power’ and planning are invested by staff and city council on a regular basis.”
Reading about budgets can be a real snoozer, so what follows is the most basic breakdown for what people might want to know and what the city’s coffers will look like in 2025.
Based on average increases over a ten-year period, sales tax revenue is projected to increase 2.5% over current year estimates.
The budget includes a pay raise for city employees with, based on the five-year Consumer Price Index average, a 4.2% cost-of-living (COLA) increase. Some employees whose performance warrants an additional pay raise may earn anywhere from 0 to 4% on top of that 4.2%. Performance pay raises have been rewarded by the city in the past but, Sanchez says, the average increase is usually in the area of 3% and not the 4% maximum allowed.
Additional full-time employee positions have been created and several part-time positions have been transitioned to full-time. Specifically, a third Water Waste/Water Technician for the utilities division has been added, a Streets Seasonal Maintenance Worker position has been changed to a full-time position (eliminating the seasonal position), a fifth Police Sergeant position, which will be administrative, has been created and the Court/Clerks Administrative Assistant position has been changed from part time to full time to provide administrative support to Human Resources and Risk Management.
The cost of transitioning to full time or creating additional full time positions including salary and benefits for the Water/Wastewater Technician is $69,498, the Streets Maintenance Worker is $63,189, the Police Sergeant is $97,437 (without patrol car) and the Administrative Assistant $22,048.
The totality of these changes (COLA, Pay for Performance, New Positions, etc.) impacts the 2025 budget by $1,047,286.
The cost of providing health and vision insurance coverage are projected to stay the same while dental coverage will increase by 4.75% in 2025.
For background information, excluding grants, the city gets revenue from five different sources – the General Revenue fund, the Enterprise fund, the Streets Trust fun, the Community Recreation fund and a series of other smaller funds used for accounting purposes.
Revenue (money coming in) from all these funds is expected to total $46,954,155 in 2025. Expenditures (money going “out”) is expected to total $53,726,443.
The difference between the two figures - $6,772,288 - is not a shortfall but instead an amount that was planned for over the past 10 years as major capital improvement projects get scheduled for completion.
There are also some major projects on tap for the city, some of which will be funded with grants, others with city revenue and still others where there is no net impact to the city budget as the city will serve as the “pass through” for grant funding.
Those large projects include Second Street Reconstruction (funded by the Streets Trust fund), Lakeview Avenue (funded by the General fund), Hunt Avenue (funded with grants), Water Augmentation (funded from money from the Water fund), Murphy Sewer Lift Station (funded from the Wastewater fund), Master Stormwater Utility (also funded from the Water fund), Downtown Alley Project (grants), Facility improvements & vehicles (various funds), New Solid Waste Shop (grants), Carroll Park Dog Park and Full Wheelchair Swing @ Cole Park (both funded from the Community Recreation fund) and CRHDC & Boyd School Housing plus the Early Childhood Education Center, which are pass throughs.
City council was unanimous in their support of the 2025 budget and praised city staff for the amount of time, energy and attention to detail required in pulling it together. It was also noted that the public had several opportunities to weigh in on the budget as it was being compiled with one more opportunity to provide public comment during the October 16 meeting prior to the final vote being held.
For more detailed information go to the city council website at www.cityofalamosa.org, click on meeting agendas, then the attachments that are a supplement to Ordinance 24-2024 making the annual appropriations for the year 2025.
