Greeley finance leaders told the City Council on July 15 that the city faces a preliminary $11 million gap between recurring 2026 expenditures and recurring revenues and outlined tools staff will use as they prepare a proposed budget.

Kaelin, the interim budget and policy director, framed the slide deck and introduced Robert Miller, division treasurer, who delivered a second‑quarter financial review and identified the key pressures: slower sales-and-use tax growth, muted development activity and rising ongoing expenditures tied to staffing and services.

Robert Miller said the city has several near‑term reserves and revenue offsets that can be used while staff rework assumptions and prioritize spending. He told council the city’s cash and investments total about $343,000,000; to date the city has recognized about $6,700,000 in interest earnings and projects roughly $13–14,000,000 by yearend, above the $8,000,000 budget estimate. Miller also reported potential sales-and-use tax declines of roughly $1,800,000 excluding building‑related collections and about $17,100,000 when building‑related receipts are included (primarily impacting capital funds).

“Overall, if we were to take a look in totality, we do expect to collect or have about $11,700,000 less in available funds than we had originally anticipated for the 2025 budget,” Miller said, adding that the outlook has improved since the prior quarter.

Why it matters: the general fund pays most city services. Miller and Kaelin said over two‑thirds of the general fund is salary and benefits, leaving limited discretionary capacity to absorb continued revenue shortfalls.

Kaelin said the preliminary 2026 base budget gap is about $11,000,000; that figure reflects ongoing staff and wage costs but excludes term‑limited positions that expire at the end of 2025. She said the organization has 63 term‑limited positions overall and that some homelessness and housing staff are funded by grants that will end without replacement funding.

To address the gap, staff have already implemented a citywide hiring pause for backfills and new hires pending city manager approval, asked departments to propose realignments, and are building a long‑range financial plan that will include a 10‑year forecast, consolidated financial policies and debt guidance. Kaelin said staff will return with refined revenue forecasts (including property-tax valuation updates from the Weld County assessor’s office) and candidate spending tradeoffs in the August–September work sessions and with the recommended budget in September.

Ending: Council members emphasized conservatism on development‑driven revenue forecasts and asked staff to prioritize maintaining core services. Staff said the July 22 meeting will present polling for ballot measures and that additional budget work sessions are scheduled before the October adoption date.