The Steamboat Springs City Council voted 6-1 last week to approve the first reading of an ordinance to adopt the 2027 budget following a discussion that centered on the need for a full-time city forester, potential funding for a human-bear conflict consultant and to what extent the city has struck a balance in funding critical services versus making tough decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first reading, voted on at council\u2019s Oct. 20 regular meeting, comes two weeks after council\u2019s nine-hour budget retreat on Oct. 6<\/a>.<\/p>\n The day after the retreat, Finance Director Kim Weber said she received updated numbers from county staff on dispatch funding, noting that she previously had been using numbers that excluded the increase to E911 revenue that went into effect in February.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Adjusting the dispatch fee numbers brought down the city\u2019s overall dispatch cost by roughly $281,000, which Weber then added back into the general fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n After implementing other modifications based on council\u2019s requests from the retreat, the city\u2019s 2027 draft budget was left at just over $207,300 in surplus, or around $307,300 with, the inclusion of the city\u2019s $100,000 in emergency reserves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Interim Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Munro gave a brief presentation on her department\u2019s request for a full-time city forester billed at $130,000, which she argued is needed to fill an operational and community need gap in tree maintenance within city limits. Currently, the department consists solely of seasonal arborists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though staff recommended that council funded the request, council opted against it at the retreat. Councilor John Agosta, absent from the retreat, questioned why that decision was made.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel that this is a very strategic position for the city,\u201d said Agosta. \u201cWe are a mountain town, we are surrounded by trees, and our ecological health is critical for the city \u2026 I was surprised that we don\u2019t even have it yet, and I do believe it is a critical position that we need to have going forward.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Councilor Amy Dickson responded that, among other things, council pushed to fund the Steamboat Springs Chamber\u2019s destination stewardship efforts $225,000 higher than staff recommended.\u00a0<\/p>\n Council President Steve Muntean noted that it was a myriad of decisions \u2014 including nixing a $50,000 request from Northwest Colorado Health and $25,000 for Routt County Search and Rescue.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Councilor Bryan Swintek said those choices were only part of the bigger picture, which Agosta would have known had he been properly caught up on the discussions that took place during the retreat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCouncilor Agosta, would it be appropriate for you to recuse yourself? Like, you did not actually watch the meeting, did you?\u201d said Swintek.<\/p>\n \u201cI just worry that we\u2019ve spent nine hours going over what I think is the most important meeting that we have going over all the city financials,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt would be, I think, really difficult as a councilor to make an informed decision like this without the amount of context that we\u2019ve gotten in that full day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Agosta admitted he had \u201cread the material\u201d but did not watch the retreat recording.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am not going to recuse myself,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2029If you want to vote me off, you can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t like you to put me in that position,\u201d said Swintek. \u201cI would like to hear you explain to the constituents why you are in a position to be able to represent (them) while missing the nine hour meeting. I\u2019d like you to justify why you\u2019re not recusing.\u2029\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I\u2019m a city council member, and I get to vote on these things,\u201d Agosta replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n Muntean rationalized that with over $200,000 in surplus \u2014 reserves excluded \u2014 the city could afford to meet the request for a full-time forester.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dickson revived a conversation initially held at council\u2019s Oct. 13 work session, where city leaders heard from Keep Bears Wild Lead Educator Christi Bubenheim on how the city is faring regarding bear incidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the work session, Bubenheim\u2019s message was clear: something needs to change, and swiftly \u2014 but what that change looks like, exactly, could require more multi-faceted solutions than what she alone can suggest.\u00a0<\/p>\n She warned that this year\u2019s unusually high bear activity \u2014 as of Sept. 10, Routt County had seen a nearly 410% surge in bear incidents from 2025<\/a> \u2014 may not be an extremity, but \u201cthe new norm.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hopeful that this is a one-off year, but realistically, I fear it might not be,\u201d Bubenheim told council.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Oct. 20 meeting, Dickson advocated for allocating funding for a consultant to mitigate human-bear conflicts in regards to Bubenheim\u2019s presentation, to which Councilor Dave Barnes suggested that such funds could simply be put toward heftier enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy perspective is it\u2019s much bigger than enforcement, because enforcement now is Chief (Mark) Beckett,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems pretty evident,\u201d said Barnes. \u201cIf I gotta go out and clean up my trash that the bear tipped over, sooner or later I\u2019d get pissed off, and then if somebody charged me to clean up my own trash, I think self enforcement would probably happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure what a consultant\u2019s going to do for us other than say: \u2018You need to build better bear-proof dumpsters,’\u201d he added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n City Manager Tom Leeson concurred with Dickson that the issue was broader than enforcement, but said that city staff could speak with Colorado Parks and Wildlife \u2014 which Bubenheim had said earlier this month was heavily understaffed \u2014 on the best path forward, whether that means hiring a consultant or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Toward the end of the discussion, Swintek called the budget as drafted a \u201chuge mistake\u201d and said that council \u201chas no leg to stand on to go to taxpayers and ask for additional funds next November.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The additional funds he referenced relate to the range of ballot measures local voters could see next fall<\/a>, potentially including a fire district consolidation measure<\/a>, as well as funding for wildfire mitigation and land stewardship, early childhood education<\/a>, and home health and hospice services<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are delivering everything and more, and we\u2019re increasing headcount. We\u2019re doing nothing to address our financial issues or to tee ourselves up politically,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will not see substantial change until we make some really hard decisions as a council.\u201d<\/p>\n Other councilors disagreed, noting that impactful cuts have indeed been made. Muntean noted that the city\u2019s capital projects reserve currently has a shortfall of over $150 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n Leeson had said at the retreat that the cuts will be felt \u201cover time through deferred maintenance, insufficient staffing, reduced training opportunities, delayed equipment, replacements and the inability to fund strategic plan initiatives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Weber noted that a lot of what is funded in the capital plan is maintenance versus, \u201cbright, shiny objects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Swintek clarified that his perspective is, in part, grounded in politics: that local residents and\/or entrepreneurs will not come to council\u2019s chambers and organize and support additional funding without them feeling the pain of not having the services they desire.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe stop hiding the warts,\u201d he said. \u201cWe start funding the things we keep kicking down the road and we stop funding the services that are the shiny objects that everyone interacts (with) and experiences. We start funding the underbelly that we\u2019re hiding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Dickson said that it\u2019s a balance, but Swintek argued that no balance was struck for the upcoming year and that the city \u201cdidn\u2019t take any hard cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n Weber said that while city staff have cut 10-12% from the budget over the past two years, they were in no way easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe made it easy for the community. We made it easy for council,\u201d she said. \u201cI would not bring staff in here and say these cuts were easy for the most part.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Council settled on the budget\u2019s first reading with adding in $130,000 for the full-time arborist, $25,000 for Routt County Search and Rescue, and a placeholder for $30,000 for a consultant to help minimize human-bear conflicts in the city, leaving a tentative surplus of roughly $120,000, including $100,000 in emergency reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n Council voted 6-1, with Swintek opposed. The second ordinance reading of the budget is slated for Nov. 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steamboat Springs City Council voted 6-1 last week to approve the first reading of an ordinance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-314727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}