Boulder presents long-term financial strategy, outlines 2025 ballot options and summer outreach

Charlotte Skee, a city budget officer, presented the City of Boulder's long-term financial strategy and a multi-year ballot framework at a joint meeting of the city—s community vitality commissions on April 8, 2025. She said the plan responds to a long list of unfunded and underfunded needs and seeks to reduce reliance on sales tax while increasing revenue stability.

The strategy builds on prior recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission reports and the 2019 "Budgeting for Community Resilience" report and centers on four workstreams: a five-year long-term financial plan, alternative funding mechanisms, core service-level identification, and a multi-year ballot-measure strategy. "We have a significant unfunded and underfunded needs list that's currently around $380,000,000," Skee said during the presentation.

Why this matters: City staff said a large share of current revenues is dedicated and therefore inflexible, leaving fewer options to meet emerging…