After a big buildup that put the future of a controversial emissions control technology at the coal-fired power plant downtown in question, the Colorado Springs Utilities Board on Monday approved the city-owned utility’s $1 billion spending plan for next year.The board, which is in effect composed of the City Council, voted 6-1 to approve the budget with one caveat that involves the scrubber technology.The board gave Colorado Springs Utilities the flexibility to spend $39 million earmarked for the scrubbers at the Martin Drake Power Plant downtown at the Ray Nixon Power Plant south of Colorado Springs instead.“If the possibility comes up that those dollars are not spent on Drake, they can be spent for Nixon,” said Councilwoman Brandy Williams, who proposed the budget amendment.Mayor Steve Bach attended the meeting, his first as a nonvoting member of the board. Bach asked most of the questions, many of them dealing with Utilities’ public affairs and communications budget. Afterward, Bach said he wasn’t satisfied with the answers.“This is the first I’ve heard from (Chief Public Affairs Officer) Sherri Newell the explanation of why they have so many people and why they have to spend so much money, so I need to absorb that,” he said.“But do we really need to spend $5 million a year by a monopoly on public affairs? Five million dollars a year for a monopoly owned by the city, to me, it doesn’t feel right,” he said. “But I’m going to look at their detail and draw a better conclusion.”Bach said he didn’t mean to focus just on communications and public affairs.“It’s all their departments. If you look at their budget, they don’t break out their expenses the way we’re required to do,” he said. “And although Utilities is obviously different from municipal government, (that’s) not true when it comes to administrative functions.”“We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, all of us.”Councilwoman Lisa Czelatdko cast the lone dissenting vote on the proposedbudget.Czelatdko said she felt “compelled” to vote against the spending plan for several reasons, including that it “continues to be summary rather than detailed” and that she believes additional savings can be ferreted out through policy changes.“Just as our country has grown through difficulty, I believe it’s going to take courage of leadership to change past policy on how the CSU board does things,” she said.Czelatdko also opposed the budget because of the amendment, saying the board “has consistently given direction” to move forward with installing the scrubbers at Drake.In addition, Czelatdko said private groups are getting “significant amounts of money” from Utilities but aren’t required to submit a report showing what ratepayers are getting in exchange.The proposed budget includes about $774,000 to groups such as Catholic Charities of Colorado Springs and the Colorado Springs chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.The Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance, which is poised to receive nearly $265,000 next year, is by far the biggest recipient from the utility’s “community investment” fund.Council members Angela Dougan and Tim Leigh left the meeting early and didn’t vote.Leigh said he had to leave early to attend another meeting that could “potentially have a significant financial impact on the downtown.”“Today’s vote on CSU’s budget is the first of three votes on its way to approval, and therefore, my presence was not of any criticality,” he said Monday night.Utilities’ proposed budget still faces two readings by the council.Dougan also said she had to leave early to attend a long-scheduled meeting about the Woodmen Road extension, a major issue in her council district.The board typically meets on the third Wednesday of each month but rescheduled because of Thanksgiving. Dougan said she told council President Scott Hente that she wouldn’t be able to attend the meeting if it was scheduled on Monday but that he did it anyway.

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