By Devin Flores
In the October 15 working session of Pueblo City Council, Mayor Heather Graham laid out the 2025 City Budget proposal as part of normal business.
The proposed budget outlined that the city is projected to face a deficit of up to $8.5 million for this calendar year. In order to counteract the growing deficit, the mayor’s office proposed major budget cuts to many city expenses, including the contributions the city makes towards non-profits such as the Pueblo Zoo and the Arts Center.
The proposal includes a 21% cut in funding for the zoo, a 75% cut in funding for the Latino Chamber of Commerce, a 23% cut in funding for the Greater Chamber of Commerce, and a 100% cut in funding for the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center.
Many of these organizations have been struggling in recent years, especially as a result of the decrease in tourism during and after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.
Councilmember Dennis Flores expressed his concern over these cuts, stating that decreasing the public funding for these organizations may detrimentally impact the city’s ability to serve its citizens and to collect tourism revenue.
“I’m focused on the non-profits here,” said Councilmember Flores. “The zoo, the arts center, the state fairgrounds, the greater chamber… all of those entities provide a service to this city, and that’s bringing tourism to town. When I look at money coming from outside, from tourism, it has a ripple effect. Those people spend the night in our hotels, get meals at our restaurants, spend money at the mall.”
He continued: “In many of these cases, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot. If we’re concerned about tax revenue, we have to take into consideration that when we cut their budget, we potentially harm the amount of dollars they take in from tourists.”
He went on to question the methodology used in determining how much was cut from each group, pointing out that a budget decrease of the same quantity could be accomplished by cutting a set percentage from each group across the board, instead of varying amounts.
Mayor Heather Graham responded to Councilmember Flores’ concerns, and stated that the calculation was based on the low revenue of the city, and that her office’s proposed budget reverts the funding for these institutions back to what was provided by the city in the 2018 fiscal year.
Some of these organizations which would be affected by these proposed budget cuts are contracted entities, meaning they are non-profits contracted by the city to manage city-owned entities, such as the Pueblo Zoo, the Human Relations Commission, or the Humane Society. Others are independent non-profits which are community partners of the city, and which receive subsidies for performing services to the community. These organizations range from the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Club to the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center
In addition to these cuts, the proposed budget features the abolition of 18 city positions, including the Ice Arena Manager and the Parks Manager. However, it also includes an $8.5 million operational budget increase for the Police Department (up 21% from this year) and a 13% increase for the budget of the Mayor’s Office—including a $45,000 raise for the Mayor’s Chief of Staff.
After the proposed budget was presented to the council, Council President Mark Aliff expressed his frustration over the size of the budget despite the proposed cuts. He went on to propose a further 10% cut to the overall budget in order to ensure the city operates without deficit.
“If we’re ever going to be successful, we need to cut our expenses,” said Councilmember Aliff. “I don’t know the answer, I can’t point to one specific thing. Over the last four years, when we had this plethora of money, instead of stocking it away and building up our reserves, we kept adding expense, after expense, after expense. It’s just frustrating.”
Devin Flores is an independent writer from Pueblo, CO. He specializes in local Colorado culture, history and politics.
Shocking! Does Pueblo Know about this? Thank you to Devin Flores and La Cucaracha News. Council gave Cinco de Mayo some money. Was that in the budget?
This will devastate Pueblos economy. We don’t need more police, we need more arts & attraction for tourism, we need more art activities for the youth, day centers for ppl struggling, another warming center, an initiative for the houseless to help clean up aka a clean up crew for the litter in exchange for resource vouchers. Cuts to the arts will strangle our finances & sew distrust, while encouraging outside agitators with forced birth agendas to come here & waste our money instead of investing it into our communities.
It’s time overhaul the mayor and all of her cult followers!!! Wait tooo long and you’ll regret it