Council studies changing charter debt cap; staff recommends tying review to Charter Review Committee

City staff presented research to Littleton City Council on June 10 about whether to propose a charter amendment that would change the city's debt-cap formula and potentially increase capacity for general-obligation debt.

Kathleen Osher, who led the staff research, told the council staff compared Littleton's limit'currently expressed in the charter as 3.7% of assessed value'to approaches in peer cities and to state statutory practice. "We looked at that debt cap in comparison. Our finance staff did a pretty comprehensive research on communities across the front range," Osher said, and found many peers use actual (market) value rather than assessed value when setting limits. Staff proposed language that would more closely match state practice by using a percentage of actual value and suggested 3% of…