Flaw in 2C mailer to cost Springs $20,000 to fix
Now arriving in mailboxes across Colorado Springs: “notices of election” concerning Issue 2C, a proposed $46 million tax increase to be submitted to city voters in the Nov. 3 election.
El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink said the last batch of TABOR notices, so called because they’re mandated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, went to the post office on Thursday.
But they’re flawed.
When challenged by Douglas Bruce, the author of TABOR, the city conceded Thursday afternoon that the notices contain an important error and scrambled to get a revision in the mail.
By law, the “notice of election” is required to include actual or estimated totals for the city’s fiscal year spending for the current year and each of the last four years.
But the first notice included actual or estimated totals for 2006-10, not the required 2005-09.
“The error is being corrected and reprinted TABOR notices with the corrected table of numbers will be sent to registered voters’ homes by the 30-day deadline,” which is Sunday, said city spokeswoman Sue Skiffington-Blumberg. “We appreciate this error being brought to our attention in time to correct the situation.”
The cost of printing and mailing the revision will be about $20,000, she said. The city is picking up the tab and handling the mailing, which would normally be processed by Balink’s office.
The error may have been innocent, but it produced a starkly different picture of the city’s spending trends.
According to the city, its spending subject to TABOR limits was $215.5 million in 2005, jumped to $251.5 million in 2006 and has declined in subsequent years. Its latest estimate of 2009 spending is $212.2 million. Not counting the proposed tax increase, it estimates city spending at only $200.4 million in 2010.
So comparing the city’s 2006-10 spending totals produced a five-year plunge of 20.32 percent, not the more modest 1.54 percent decline calculated for 2005-09 and included in the revision.
These numbers are not adjusted for inflation, which has been a cumulative 10 percent since 2005. Factor in population growth, and it’s clear the city government is having to serve more people with less money.
But the original election notice made the city’s budget difficulties appear more acute — and its request for a tax increase more reasonable — than if the notice had followed the mandatory formula.
Bruce said he was “glad they made that one concession,” but maintained that it was a “gross lie” for the city to continue to reckon that its spending will decline by $51 million between 2006 and 2010.
“It isn’t just Doug Bruce nitpicking,” Bruce said. “We’re talking about big bucks here.”
“We disagree with Mr. Bruce, as we always do, on the numbers,” Skiffington-Blumberg said.
Balink said it was “not our role” to verify information provided for election notices. He noted that the original mailing includes a disclaimer assigning that responsibility to Kathryn Young, the city clerk.
She did not respond to requests for comment.
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Air Force forward Jacques Lamoureux (21) brings the puck up ice against Connecticut in the first period Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009, at the Cadet Ice Arena in Air Force Academy, Colo. Photo by Kevin Kreck, The Gazette File