Cottonwood Heights council retreat lays out options to close $2.7M shortfall; staff told to model fee and compensation scenarios

At a retreat dominated by budget choices, Cottonwood Heights city leaders were presented with scenarios staff said are needed to close a roughly $2.7 million gap for the coming fiscal year and agreed on direction for follow‑up modeling.

City Manager Jared Herbert opened the session by warning the council that staff were “very far behind in the budget process” and needed council direction on revenue and cut priorities so that a preliminary budget could be ready in May. “We really want to stay high level,” Herbert said, asking council members to focus on department‑level tradeoffs rather than line items.

Finance staff summarized the city’s recent fiscal trends and pointed to several drivers of growth: added positions (some formerly contracted), a rise in salary and benefit costs and transfers to other funds for debt service, roads and stormwater. Finance staff member Scott George outlined that transfers out of the general fund—debt service, a $2 million capital transfer and a $200,000 transfer to the stormwater fund—account for a significant portion of the change in expenditures.

Stormwater fee, Walgreens lease revenue and transfers

Councilors discussed two near‑term revenue levers staff asked them to consider. First, staff proposed raising the stormwater ERU fee so the stormwater fund no longer requires a roughly $200,000 annual general‑fund transfer. Scott George said the current fee is $8.44 per ERU (projected to $8.69); staff estimated that replacing the $200,000 transfer and the routine escalation would require roughly a 12–15% increase (a staff illustration showed a roughly $0.88 ERU bump equating to net annual revenue near $250,000). George warned that a full funding level from an earlier, more comprehensive study would…