SOUTH FORK— Town Treasurer Amanda Hill was the first to present during the end on month meeting of the town board on Aug. 22. Hill asked the board to look at some of the additional expenditures on the treasurer’s report to note that the numbers were going to differ from previous years. Hill continued by stating that the board had to pay R&G Associates for the engineer’s report for the ATV route that was approved through CDOT and an additional expenditure that has been ongoing to the visitor center until tourism funding comes in for the year. “Once we get the tourism grant, we will reimburse anything that was taken out of the general fund and not have to carry the visitor center anymore,” said Hill.
Hill asked if the board had any additional questions, to which Trustee Don Spencer replied that he did not understand the amount of money that was “upside down” from last year. “We are almost $50,000 down from last year and I just don’t see where that amount is coming from. I bring this up every time and everyone can see what I am seeing. I am not saying that it has anything to do with staff, it is just alarming to me,” said Spencer.
Hill excused herself to Spencer and took a moment to explain that the additional expenditures were on top of the fact that they now had a full-time maintenance person, unlike last year and that the police force had grown significantly, including that they were paying for a full-time police chief this year and had not at the beginning of last year. Hill also stated that most of the town staff had also recently received raises and that all of it combined added up to the negative number they were seeing. “In reality, we are about $23,000 under our budget, which when we created the budget, we anticipated being about $80,000 in the hole. Considering, we are dong alright for now, at this time of year,” said Hill.
Spencer stated that he understood for the most part, but that the town is still struggling to break even and that staff needs to continue to stay diligent until numbers go back into the black in the budget. Hill moved on to the police report and asked Chief Don McDonald to give his report to the board.
McDonald began by stating that calls were up significantly from previous years. “We are averaging 300 calls per month. Half of those come from Colorado State Patrol and the other half comes from citizens. Every time a call comes in whether it’s to handle a situation or we take the call and move out, we are running on the average of 300 to 320 a month,” stated McDonald.
“We have walk-ins that occur now, which I will be honest, never occurred before I took over. We have about 12 to 15 a week. We also have people coming in to report criminal activity and those are hours you will not see reported, particularly on my side,” said McDonald. He continued, explaining that he is working the part-time officers only 30 hours per week because he is trying to keep his budget numbers down.
“This past month has been really fast-paced, and we are doing good. We are not a money-making company,” finished McDonald. The board thanked him for keeping an eye on his budget and for the hard work he has been doing for the community and closed the discussion.