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Longmont staff present 2026 budget with revenue pressures; staff recommend incremental-policy changes
Summary
City finance staff presented a 2026 proposed budget that uses fund balance to cover a projected gap as sales and use tax have weakened while property tax reassessment boosted revenues; staff proposed technical policy changes including raising the development-revenue baseline and moving utility-billing operations out of the general fund.
Longmont Finance staff presented the city’s proposed 2026 budget at the Sept. 2 council study session, describing a mix of revenue headwinds and one-time policy choices that produce a $520.2 million expense plan supported by $476.3 million in projected revenues and a planned draw of $43.9 million in fund balance mostly for capital programs.
Sandra Cifuentes, budget manager, and Theresa Moy, chief financial officer, told council that sales and use tax collections are weaker than in prior years and that use tax — the tax tied primarily to construction permits — was down sharply through midyear. “Our performance through June is not really looking too great. We are up 1.9% in sales tax but down significantly 21% in use tax for a combined overall decrease at this point of 1.4%,” Moy said. The proposed 2026 budget assumes modest improvement and projects combined sales and use tax growth of roughly 0.5 percent for 2026.
Property tax is projected to rise in 2026 because 2025 is a reassessment year. Cifuentes said part of the new property-tax revenue adopted during…
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