City of Cheyenne continues $147.6 million budget discussions

May 23—CHEYENNE — The Cheyenne City Council continued discussions Wednesday evening around the city's proposed $147.6 million budget for the 2025 fiscal year.

Throughout the past two weeks, city departments came before members of the governing body to present their budgets and field any questions City Council members had. On Wednesday, council members asked questions of Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins related to the proposed budget before unanimously deciding to recommend that City Council approve the budget on second reading at next week's council meeting.

However, they did make one amendment to the initial ordinance.

City Council member Scott Roybal moved to shift $35,000 from miscellaneous insurance and bonding funds, to be split evenly across the city's three ward discretionary accounts.

The reason for this surplus is because the treasurer's office estimated a 20% increase in the miscellaneous insurance and bonding expense when preparing the budget. When they received what the actual expense would be, their estimate was $35,000 over what they needed.

This shift in the budget is in addition to the existing $20,000 that is allocated to each ward in the proposed budget, as well as any carryover from the previous fiscal year that a ward did not spend.

With Ward 3 as an example, they will be awarded $20,000 through what is allocated in the proposed budget, given $11,666.66 from this amendment to the ordinance and receive the $18,075 as a rollover from what they didn't spend in the previous year, for a total of $49,741.66 available to spend in the upcoming fiscal year.

Council member Richard Johnson, who represents Ward 3, questioned why they would need so much money, particularly if they only spent $1,025 from their discretionary account in the previous fiscal year. His Ward 3 council colleague, Michelle Aldrich, said that they could use those funds for larger projects that they previously would not have been able to afford with only $20,000.

Ward 1 council member Jeff White said that his ward has historically been a good steward of using its contingency funds wisely, but cautioned going above $20,000 for each ward.

"Perhaps we can backfill each ward's amounts to $20,000, and then if there are larger projects that our colleagues want to tackle with the larger amount, maybe we can look at adding upon that at a later date," White said.

Aldrich said that as long as their constituents are informed on how these funds are being spent in the wards, then it is a good move.

"I actually think (the constituents) might be more supportive of this type of spending than they might be of our general budget spending," Aldrich said. "And I think that just because we were thrifty and didn't spend all of our money doesn't mean that we should go back to just the $20,000. So, I would argue against that means of just starting with $20,000 each year. We will get ours spent, there's no doubt in my mind, in a timely fashion."

Council members Mark Rinne, Tom Segrave and White voted against the amendment, with the other six votes in support of it.

When asking general questions to the mayor about the budget, Rinne inquired if it would have been better to implement salary increases more gradually and not stretch the budget as much in this fiscal year.

The raise recommendations came as a result of in-house surveys around the area to see how city employee salaries compared to the market rate. Collins said the pay raises were overdue and will help keep city positions competitive with the market rate.

"I think it was really a matter of fairness," Collins said. "We have some employees that have worked with us for more than 20 years, and when we looked at the salary range from low to high ... they were at the low end of what their market rate would be at the end of their careers."

He said pay increases going forward will likely be more gradual.

Johnson inquired about how the city will continue nine firefighter positions that are currently funded through a grant after the grant no longer covers them.

Collins said that the grant will fund those positions for two more years, and that he is confident the city will have those funds available when the city needs them. In total, he estimated they will need around $1 million to replace the grant.

Through this question, Johnson opened a discussion on how well the city is prepared to handle a recession and the strength of the city's reserves.

"We're really blessed right now that we've been able to put away, in the last few years, 20-some-million dollars," Collins said. "So, we have great reserves. My expectations would be that we would be able to — by managing open positions and stuff — not ever have to let anybody go during this timeframe. I think we're in such a better position than we were, like in the 2008 timeframe, and when you guys went into COVID, not knowing exactly how that would be. I think we're really prepared."

The city is required to be able to run on reserve funds for at least 120 days. Currently, it would be able to function for 227 days on reserves.

Multiple council members and the mayor expressed their thanks for the work that went into creating the proposed budget.

"As a basic document, this certainly is the best one I've ever seen," said council member Pete Laybourn. "And I think that when we adopt it, we'll be able to explain it. And I think that it's something I actually can say I'm proud of, and that's a very comforting thing to be able to say."

The recommendation of the Committee of the Whole will be to approve the ordinance on second reading, as amended, at the next City Council meeting. The council will meet on Tuesday instead of Monday next week because of the Memorial Day holiday.

Noah Zahn is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's local government/business reporter. He can be reached at 307-633-3128 or nzahn@wyomingnews.com. Follow him on X @NoahZahnn.