Boulder County announced Monday that it has eliminated about 90 positions, including laying off 31 employees and cutting about 60 vacant positions, because of a budget deficit.<\/p>\n
The Boulder County Housing Authority and Boulder County Public Health also plan to eliminate an as-yet-to-be determined number of positions, according to the county.\u00a0Boulder County spokesperson Gloria Handyside said she\u2019s not currently releasing a list of the eliminated positions. She added the county is offering a voluntary\u00a0severance package between Oct. 1 and Dec. 1.<\/p>\n
Next year\u2019s recommended budget<\/a>, which will be presented to the county commissioners at 1 p.m. Tuesday, cuts the general fund by $13.2 million. About 70% of the county\u2019s budget goes to employee salaries and benefits. Beyond staffing cuts, the county also expects to cut about $4 million in general fund operating expenses.<\/p>\n According to the budget memo, all departments and elected offices are expected to participate in reduction planning. No new requests to hire employees will be considered, including grant funded positions, according to the memo. But the county does plan to support previous staffing commitments for the Boulder County Jail\u2019s new alternative sentencing facility<\/a> and planned jail expansion.<\/p>\n Current projections show that county spending will soon outpace revenue, according to a news release. To address this structural deficit in the county\u2019s general fund, the county will need to identify $30 million to $40 million in savings over the next three years. Uncertainty around federal and state funding continues to put pressure on an already challenging economic situation created by rising inflation and uncertainty around future revenue from property taxes and sales and use taxes, according to the release.<\/p>\n For 2026, the county is planning a total general fund budget of about $264 million, an increase of about $1 million from the current year. That includes cuts totaling about $5 million, plus increased spending of about $6 million.<\/p>\n Positions eliminated included all positions that have been vacant for at least 12 months prior to May 1. For layoffs, department heads were asked to use the commissioners\u2019 strategic priorities<\/a>, as well as the belief that \u201cgood governance is impossible without racial equity,\u201d according to the release.<\/p>\n Outside the general fund, Boulder County Public Health spokesperson Giselle Noll said an exact number of health department layoffs weren\u2019t yet available.<\/p>\n \u201cThe changes under way are the result of a carefully planned process rooted in Boulder County Public Health\u2019s priority-based budgeting framework,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cEach step has been reviewed and guided through established budget priorities and in coordination with the Board of Health.\u201d<\/p>\n Boulder County Housing Authority spokesperson Kiran Herbert said her department is still reviewing staffing levels before finalizing workforce changes. She added that the housing authority\u00a0has been staffed at levels above what is typical for similar housing authorities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decisions ahead are about right sizing our organization to align more closely with industry standards and ensure long-term sustainability,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n The county\u2019s budget process includes elected office and department head budget presentations at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 7 and Oct. 9, followed by a public hearing on the recommended budget at 1 p.m. Oct. 14. The commissioners are scheduled to adopt the budget on Dec. 9.<\/p>\n Community members are invited to share written comments and feedback with the commissioners through an online form<\/a> or speak at the Oct. 14 public hearing. For more information and to access budget documents, go to bouldercounty.gov\/government\/budget-and-finance\/county-budget\/<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boulder County announced Monday that it has eliminated about 90 positions, including laying off 31 employees and cutting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[12247,138,2112,29143,336,12248,2113,256,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-50923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-boulder-county","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-colorado-news","12":"tag-entrepreneurship","13":"tag-front-range","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}