Colorado Springs doesn’t need a tax increase — it probably needs two of them.

Tuesday Mayor Steve Bach and members of his management team explained a reorganization that, in part, required that six employees be laid off. Chief of Staff Laura Neumann said that to streamline government and plan for future budgets, “you need to make some tough decisions.”

Neumann said the layoffs will save the city $750,000 annually in salary and benefits. The city also is deciding not to fill eight vacant positions in the street division because that work will be out-sourced.

This is good news for those who voted for Bach. These are the kinds of moves he said he would make.

But there is bad news, too. Neumann noted that all of the budget savings from the layoffs will be absorbed by increasing pension payments, utility bills and other costs that must be borne by the general fund. Paying for infrastructure improvements in the next decade and beyond is not going to be possible with the tax structure the city now has.

There still are people who will tell you Colorado Springs can outsource and cut its way to black ink. Those people are lying to you.

Egged on by the Americans for Prosperity, Bach took a no-tax pledge during the mayoral campaign. But Bach, who can read a balance sheet better than the AFP wags, now sees the reality of a growing city that has an eroding sales tax base, a microscopic property tax and looming infrastructure needs.

Of course the mayor is loathe to violate his no-tax pledge, but he told a national CBS News audience last week: “I hope the citizens, somewhere in the future, will decide that we should have more stable revenue, which does mean property tax revenue.”

Bach is not violating the no-tax pledge in saying that because there is no tax measure on the ballot and he’s not stumping for one. Listen to the collective message from Bach and Neumann, though, and the message is unmistakable: the city does not have enough money coming in.

The first tax, urged in this space before, would be a property tax for a stormwater program. A stormwater district would include most of the county.

More really bad news: Because the city is overly dependent upon sales tax revenue and that revenue base is weakening, the city may have to look at another tax measure later on.

Perhaps we could offer the voters a phase-out of half a cent’s worth of sales tax over, say, four years — in exchange for a substantial property tax increase that could provide the stability Bach talks about.

Go ahead, shoot the messenger-columnist. It’s not going to change the math.

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Listen to Barry Noreen on KRDO NewsRadio 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:35 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Contact him at 719-636-0363 or barry.noreen@gazettedev.gazette.com