By Mary Dolores Young
This guest opinion calls attention to a common misperception that may impact your vote in the upcoming election and asks you to vote “no” on Issue 2A.
The City of Boulder ballot Issue 2A asks whether we should extend a 0.15% City sales and use tax that currently goes into the General Fund and generates approximately $7.5 million per year and if yes, do we want to split this revenue stream in half and dedicate half of it — $3.75 million — to the arts.
The General Fund pays for entire departmental budgets — including police, fire/rescue, housing and human services, facilities maintenance and municipal court to name just a few. It pays for programs such as wildfire resilience, behavioral health response, the upcoming day services center, safe and managed parks and public spaces, and provides funding for community programs that help address social inequities such as home repairs at mobile home communities and language access to non-English speakers. And, yes, provides funds to repair those pesky potholes. These important services could suffer budget cuts if 2A were passed as it could necessitate cuts in basic community needs, city government responsibilities and affect our city’s financial well-being.
The arts and cultural activity in Boulder is crucially important as well. The good news is that we are already showing our love for the arts through a dedicated sales/use tax. In 2021, we voted on and passed the Community, Culture, Resilience and Safety Tax, dedicating nearly $20 million to community grants over the 15-year life of the tax. In addition, arts and culture institutions (Studio Arts Boulder, the Dairy, BMOCA, KGNU, Museum of Boulder) have benefited with nearly $12 million in city capital funding over the last eight years. Annually, city resources spent on arts, culture and heritage now total about $4.5 million (Office of Arts and Culture operating budget, public art, community grants and free rent in city buildings). In contrast, our Municipal Court budget has hovered around $2.5 million for the last five budget cycles.
Dedicating tax revenue for specific causes or interests has a negative impact on the city’s basic services. The results are similar to the water diversions in the Colorado River Compact: each self-interested party siphons off whatever amount of the resource they can, leaving a nearly dry river for basic public uses, with no flexibility to adjust allocations even under dire circumstances. Currently, 54% of sales and use tax revenue is already dedicated for specific purposes to Open Space and Mountain Parks; transportation; Community, Culture and Safety; and Parks and Recreation.
Creating yet another dedicated tax runs counter to the City’s financial planning which has been on a continuous strategic road to stabilization since the findings and recommendations of two Blue Ribbon Commissions beginning in 2008. These two ad-hoc committees identified a “structural gap” between revenues and expenditures estimated at $90 million by 2030, even with the extension of expiring sales and use taxes. They determined that the Councils’ culture of being “everything to everyone” made them prey to reactive policy-making in response to pressure from single interest advocates asking for specific services without consideration of who loses.
Our city council, in wanting to satisfy a single interest, endorsed issue 2A at the expense of more pervasive budgetary considerations. At a minimum, the Council should have provided voters with two competing ballot questions: one, consistent with the long-term financial stabilization strategy, to renew the General Fund tax in full as it currently exists and a second with the language honoring the citizen petition asking to allocate the full tax to one single interest. Instead, voters will find only one option that essentially holds ongoing city revenue hostage by requiring half of the tax to be dedicated to a single interest, thereby reducing the City’s flexibility in meeting a wide variety of community needs.
Do we really want to pay for more tax revenue diversions through cuts in basic community services, city government responsibilities and risk our city’s financial well-being?
Please vote “no” on Issue 2A. We can vote next November to permanently focus the tax on the General Fund and its essential needs before it expires in December 2024.
Mary Dolores Young served on the Boulder City Council from 2013 to 2021 and on the Planning Board from 2009 to 2013. While on Council she also served on the Financial Strategies Committee.