The Colorado Springs City Council laid out plans to cover a swath of needs for the police department, fire department and homeless outreach next year with marijuana sales tax revenue.

The proposal advanced during the budget session Wednesday afternoon uses the estimated $4 million collected by the retail marijuana sales tax through the end of 2026 to cover new technology for the Colorado Springs Police Department, a training academy for the Colorado Springs Fire Department and a portion of the Clean and Safe program in downtown Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs began collecting the retail marijuana sales tax revenue in April after city voters passed a ballot measure in 2024 to allow recreational sales in the city. The 5% sales tax on marijuana is required to be used for public safety programs, mental health services and post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for veterans.

The city is projected to bring in $1.7 million in tax revenue by the end of this year and an additional $2.4 million by the end of 2026. The new proposal, supported by the City Council and Mayor Yemi Mobolade, would spend around 75% of those funds in the public safety category.

“In a time when we have a lot of needs in our fire and police department, I think it’s a wiser use of these tax dollars and one that would be more supported by citizens,” Councilmember Dave Donelson said.

While previous months of conversations had focused just on the money collected in 2025, Mobolade recently introduced a new proposal for the dedicated sales tax that included next year’s revenue. Many councilmembers were not told about the expanded plan until a work lunch on Tuesday.

Even those who agreed with the idea of how to spend the money said there was a shocking lack of communication about the major change in the proposal.

“It should have been led by council, not the mayor telling us what he’s doing with it. I feel like this is past tense. It’s really irking me right now,” Councilmember David Leinweber said.

The only explicit spend listed for the marijuana tax revenue was $700,000 for a contract with Downtown Partnership to help fund the ongoing Clean and Safe pilot program. The rest of the budget item listed $3.2 million for public safety needs and $200,000 for a combination of mental health and PTSD treatment services.

The Colorado Springs Fire Department had announced it would not hold a training academy in 2026 as one of the reductions needed to meet a reduced budget. The academy trains classes of new firefighter recruits and prepares them to be sworn in.

The firefighter training academy costs around $1.6 million to hold, depending on the size of the class. Chief of Staff Jamie Fabos said the Fire Department would base the size and cost of the 2026 class on the need for new recruits during the year.

On the police side, Fabos said the money would be used to pay for overtime by police officers, acquiring new technology for the department, and partially making up for a planned delay in the police training academy.

Finance Director Charae McDaniel said the budget would only list the big-picture categories, but the city would write up where the funding would be prioritized within the fire and police departments. McDaniel said the city decided to plan for next year’s marijuana sales tax revenue as a debate dragged on between the City Council and the mayor’s office this summer about how to spend it.

“As it went on longer and we got through the year, the decision was to just wrap it all into the 206 budget process,” McDaniel said.

The City Council debated for several hours about other additions or cuts to the 2026 budget, but largely left the rest of Mobolade’s proposed budget untouched.

The other major point of debate was whether the city should reduce the budget further. The preliminary budget first announced by Mobolade at the beginning of October listed the city budget at $907 million, around $31 million less than the 2025 city budget. The budget decline was largely attributed to a lack of growth in sales tax revenue.

Councilmember Brian Risley was the most vocal skeptic that the city should project any increase to sales tax revenue in the 2026 budget. Changing to a budget with no increase in sales tax would mean reducing the general fund by another $3.5 million before the end of the year.

“If we budget for an increase and we don’t see an increase, we are going to be here in the same position that we are this year with a deficit,” Risley said. “I would rather take the other approach, plan on a flat budget and be surprised in a positive way.”

The issue led to a debate about whether the City Council preferred to make drastic cuts now and hope that services could return during the year, or stick with the current projections and make cuts during the year if the city gets less revenue.

A majority of the council indicated their support for the latter option, saying that making more cuts shortly after the $31 million reduction and layoffs that were announced in September might be a shock to city staff.

“Those were really severe cuts. None of them were easy, and I’m not sure we are up for it right now. If things go bad later, I’m sure we can,” Leinweber said.

The official vote to approve the city budget will take place at the Colorado Springs City Council meeting on Nov. 10.