FOUNTAIN — The City of Fountain plans to increase its budget for street resurfacing projects by at least 10% each year until 2027, according to its 2025-2027 Strategic Plan approved on Tuesday.
Improving transportation infrastructure is one of the city's top four priorities in the plan, along with boosting communication with the public, supporting local businesses, and enhancing water and electric security. Fountain City Councilmember Jennifer Herzberg said the city's current roads are poor and residential roads need the most help.
Last November, Fountain voters rejected a ballot question proposing a 1% sales tax increase to fund major road improvements through the Pikes Peak Regional Transportation Authority (PPRTA). Joining PPRTA would have given the city more than $5 million each year to spend on roads. The City of Fountain's current annual budget dedicated to streets is just over $2 million.
Now a year after the ballot measure failure, Councilmember Herzberg said the city has rearranged next year's budget to add increases for street resurfacing projects.
"One of our priorities is to increase the street maintenance budget by 10% every year. So we're looking at other parts of the budget to try to get by. Maybe postpone capital projects so that we can divert a little bit more money towards streets," said Councilmember Herzberg. "The best that we can do today without that additional funding is just to really focus on our primary thoroughfares and unfortunately, our side roads, our neighborhoods, some of which are in real disrepair, just have to go unmaintained."
When asked what specific items were cut from other departments to fund the 10% objective, Deputy City Manager Todd Evans said he did not have a list of specific items cut, but instead, city officials had to be very selective about what could be funded in next year's budget.
Darrell Couch, a Fountain resident who previously ran for mayor, said he doesn't believe the 10% increase to the budget will be enough to make major fixes.
"It's not enough, and it's too little too late. The roads are going to take a lot more money than that," said Couch. "People realize the roads are in bad shape. They realize that there's no funding mechanism in the city."
Councilmember Herzberg said city officials have not decided whether to revisit the PPRTA ballot question in the future.
PPRTA serves six regional governments: Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, unincorporated El Paso County, Green Mountain Falls, Ramah, and Calhan.
Councilmember Herzberg said some areas within the City of Fountain limits, like South Academy Highlands, still collect PPRTA tax because the land was annexed into the city from unincorporated El Paso County after 2004.
"The 1% is still charged there, and that money goes to the member cities and counties, not to Fountain. So we're losing considerable income every year in a tax that most of us are already paying," said Herzberg.
Councilmember Herzberg said the city is still looking for another funding mechanism to get bigger road improvement projects done. She said a previous analysis of Fountain infrastructure showed it would cost $3 million to maintain the roads as they are now. Councilmember Herzberg said some residential streets need completely repaved, which could cost more than $1 million per mile.
"We're doing the band-aids as much as we can, but that's not a long-term plan," she said. "When you really look at it, it's wasting money simply because they don't last. So what's going to last is a rebuild of some of those streets."
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