The Mayor's Mixtape-Episode 34

Mayor Graham's 34th episode of the Mayor's Mixtape is a recap of the City Council Work Session from Monday, October 20. FInd out about the Convergys project and the potential ahead. Plus Mayor Graham answers questions about the proposed 2026 budget. 

 Don't forget about upcoming Halloween events that are free and accessible to the whole family. We hope to see you at City Hall on Halloween from 2-4 on Friday, October 31. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Haley Sue Robinson 0:06

Welcome to the 34th episode of the Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for the City of Pueblo.

Heather Graham, Mayor 0:13

I'm Heather Graham, City of Pueblo Mayor.

Convergys Redevelopment Plan

Haley Sue Robinson 0:15

And I just want to remind you, you can find our podcast on YouTube, Apple, BuzzSprout, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, and you can also watch on local channel 17. You can email us your topics or suggestions, uh, questions, mayor@pueblo.us, and we would love to answer them for you. Uh Mayor, let's get into the city council recap. We had a longer work session last night. Actually, not quite as long as I anticipated, but um let's start with the Converges project that uh was talked about last night. Um so this is the Converges, the Circle K project. And for people who missed it, can you kind of walk us through some of this and explain what the plans are for that property?

Heather Graham, Mayor 1:05

Yeah, so the property is um on Orman and Northern, the old Converges building um that has been vacant now for quite some time. The roof is caved in, it's continuously on fire, um, has a lots lots of bad stuff going on over in that area. So there is a private entity who's going to be purchasing the building. The lot. The city owns the front um portion of the lot. And the city is going to help incentivize this purchase with some of our demo funds um in order to get the building down.

Haley Sue Robinson 1:43

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 1:43

And then the city will acquire 1.2 acres of the total property, and we'll have the back side, um, if passed by city council, of the property where we're looking to put in some workforce housing. Um, and then on the front side will be a Circle K.

Haley Sue Robinson 1:59

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 2:00

That was discussed last night, and it's not just gonna be your normal typical gas station, it's gonna have um twelve hundred additional square footage um of a market slash grocery option.

Haley Sue Robinson 2:12

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 2:13

On the front side. So it's really gonna

Haley Sue Robinson 2:15

like fresh food.

Heather Graham, Mayor 2:16

Yep, food desert issues, um, in Bessemer. And so it's just uh it's a great project overall. So I think the city council's gonna support it. It's kind of what I heard last night. Um, so we're super excited to uh get the building down, acquire the property and and see something um new come up in that area. Um yeah.

Circle K Market And Food Access

Haley Sue Robinson 2:38

Okay, and one of I think one of the important questions that a lot of folks had was who currently owns the property? Does the city own the property?

Heather Graham, Mayor 2:46

Converges owns the majority of the property. The city owns one little square, um the corner of Northern and Orman, that front piece of parking.

Haley Sue Robinson 2:55

Okay. So then um Circle K would um acquire from Converges. Um we would do the we would assist with the demo, and then the city would acquire the back portion of the property.

Heather Graham, Mayor 3:10

The back portion of the property the majority of the property.

Ownership, City Role, And Demo Support

TIF Basics And Catalyst Projects

Haley Sue Robinson 3:12

Okay. Um additionally, there was another good question as to kind of the function of uh TIF dollars and how or why those dollars aren't being used for this project or or how that works in conjunction with this project.

Heather Graham, Mayor 3:28

Yeah, so there there are no TIF dollars in the district currently. We don't have any catalyst project.

Haley Sue Robinson 3:34

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 3:35

Um that is increasing the base from the um the original. Um that would take a new property, um, it would take a demo of a building.

Haley Sue Robinson 3:49

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 3:50

Um in order to actually build TIF dollars. Um at one time they were going to put a Black Hill substation in the area that was going to be the catalyst project to um generate those TIF dollars, but that didn't happen.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:08

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 4:08

Um so in order to generate the TIF, you have to have a new property.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:14

Something that increases the tax base.

Heather Graham, Mayor 4:16

Yeah, or yeah, something that um increases the value of the property. So if we don't see any new buildings going up or we don't see any new buildings being um rehabbed and refurbished, you're not gonna have any TIF dollars generated. So this Circle K would be essentially the startup for this TIF district.

Budget Proposal Headlines

Haley Sue Robinson 4:35

This could be a catalyst project. Okay. Because that was an another um phrase that was used a lot last night. And so I think it's important for folks to understand what does that mean, how does it work, and um then what does that do for us moving forward. Okay, great. Um so we'll see that on first reading on the 27th?

Heather Graham, Mayor 4:58

Correct.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:59

Okay. Great. That's exciting.

Heather Graham, Mayor 5:02

Yeah, super exciting.

Haley Sue Robinson 5:03

I think it could be a really cool project for not only the the the Bessemer neighborhood, but I mean most folks know the Converges building and how long it's been vacant and um all the problems that we've had at that location for police, fire, the calls for service.

Heather Graham, Mayor 5:21

Yeah, right across the street we have um Bessemer Park. We're gonna be fencing. Um that should be fenced and done by the end of the year. So we're also looking forward to getting that property. More secured. More secured, yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 5:34

Great. Yeah, cool. Very good things happening. Okay, so uh mayor, the majority of last night's uh work session was your presentation for the budget. Um you presented the proposed 2026 budget and um overall you presented a council budget with a 15% decrease in operating costs. Um you proposed a $5.17 million reduction in expenditures, which includes non-departmental costs, uh contractual agreements, health and welfare, other contributions and donations, transfers to other funds in operating. So can you kind of explain how that came to be where we got the $5.17 million?

Cutting Nonprofits And Contractual Costs

Heather Graham, Mayor 6:19

Sure. So previously the city had funded nonprofits additionally outside of the non-departmentals. So we're not doing that this year. Um there was multi-million dollars worth of funding going to outside nonprofits when I first became the mayor, and so we decreased that 50% last year, and then we decreased it um completely for nonprofits to come straight to the city to ask. So um the city gives four hundred and ninety thousand dollars a year to CSAC. Um so I increased that sixty thousand dollars to five hundred and fifty thousand. The county is going to do the same, which will be about one point one million dollars that people can apply through CSAC. Okay. Um so that those, you know, those funding sources are not going to be coming to the city's uh general fund any longer. So that was a large uh majority of that. Um we also did a 15% decrease in all of our contractual non-departmentals, and you also that would also you would also see um a decrease in the overall um expenditure. And then for the operating, we did a 15% decrease um in the city's line items. Um and I think that that was almost

Haley Sue Robinson 7:35

For each of the departments.

Heather Graham, Mayor 7:36

Yeah, two million dollars worth of savings. Also, our transfers out, um, we subsidize uh transit, uh Memorial Hall, um, and so we were not subsidizing those um outside outside the general fund as much as we were um previously. Um we also are taking our emergency 911 funds and our lottery funds and using a portion of those um for pay for the employees for dispatch and then the employees at the parks department. So that's where you see um another lump lump sum of that decrease in there. Um yeah, so

Haley Sue Robinson 8:18

Okay.

Wage Increases And Health Costs

Heather Graham, Mayor 8:18

Overall the expenditures you you know you will see a decrease, but you will see an increase in um personnel wages. And that attributes to our health insurance costs um went up five point eight percent for twenty twenty-six, sure, which is about one point four million dollars overall. Um and then you will see all the contractual um unions, so fire, PD, PAGE, um, which are our general service employees, and you'll see the increase um that city council um votes and approves um when we're negotiating those contracts every year.

Haley Sue Robinson 8:59

Yeah, and I have each of those um approved increases, so it was a four point seven two percent uh approved increase for the fire department, which is about a million. Okay. Uh four percent for police sergeants and three point six percent increase for police officers and corporals, and then the PAGE increase of three point two five percent. Um and then the last uh increase to be approved by council would be uh three point two five for appointing and management.

Heather Graham, Mayor 9:31

Yep.

Haley Sue Robinson 9:31

And that's yet to be approved, that's part of the proposed budget.

Heather Graham, Mayor 9:35

Part of the proposed budget.

Haley Sue Robinson 9:36

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 9:36

Those individuals, those employees are not within

Haley Sue Robinson 9:39

They're non-union members. Okay. So that was an increase of 3.54 million um overall in wages, and and that's uh part of the negotiation process that we've discussed before. Um and pretty standard for what we see each year, would you say?

Heather Graham, Mayor 9:56

Yeah, I mean it's set by charter, so it's the comparables to other to our other communities. So um it's an average based off the five other communities that we compare to at an 85 um percent though. So 15% reduction compared to what those other communities are paying their employees.

Fund Balance, Reserves, And Road Transfers

Haley Sue Robinson 10:16

Got it. Okay. Um there were a couple other things that stuck out um that I thought maybe we should talk about. So one thing was the 2025 adopted change fund balance of nearly 8.6 million. That's what we talked a lot about at the beginning of this year. And then the actual change um was 5.67 million.

Heather Graham, Mayor 10:37

And that's projected actual. So that's based off of so our projected, when we talk projected budget, we're talking about halfway or quarter of the way through the year. So finance goes in, they say this is how much departments have spent. Um, these are open positions that we have, and although we said we were gonna be nine million in the hole with all the open positions, um, and maybe some projects didn't cost what we thought that they were gonna cost.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:06

Oh, sure.

Heather Graham, Mayor 11:06

Um, that's where you're gonna see that difference in the in the actual so um you're always gonna see a less number than what we budgeted for to take out of the reserves because we have open police positions.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:23

Got it.

Heather Graham, Mayor 11:24

Um so you have 39 vacancies right now, it's about four million dollars.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:28

Sure.

Heather Graham, Mayor 11:28

Um, between wages, benefits. Um, so you we've continuously seen that roll over every year back into the city's fund balance um if if those positions are open.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:40

And then you take into account other positions that may be open at certain points in the year and some salary savings, or like you discussed the uh project costs could be under budget.

Heather Graham, Mayor 11:52

Yep.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:53

Okay. All right. I thought that was uh important to discuss just the the difference because that that 8.6 million has been something that has been talked about, you know, throughout the year and has been a really big sticking point for a lot of folks as far as um what does it look like for the future.

Heather Graham, Mayor 12:10

Yeah, I mean, when we talk about the you know 8.6 was relatively in the middle of all of the other transfers we've done. So in 2023, we transferred 16 million dollars out of the reserves to balance the budget.

Haley Sue Robinson 12:26

Okay.

Grants Strategy And Staffing Impacts

Heather Graham, Mayor 12:26

And in 2024, 10 million. So we've seen larger numbers that we transferred out of the reserves in previous years, but that is because in the prior year, like our director of finance said, um, we debruced and people were spending a ton of money because you had all of this federal stimulus money.

Haley Sue Robinson 12:46

Right.

Heather Graham, Mayor 12:46

So instead of returning that to the citizens, it goes into our savings, right? We um propose and project what projects the majority of that money went to pave roads. So, yes, it went to our savings, then we had to transfer it out of our savings into our general fund expenditures through the year. So that's why you see these large decreases in the fund balance.

Haley Sue Robinson 13:12

Got it.

Heather Graham, Mayor 13:12

It's not because we were out of control spending of 16 and 10 million dollars, it's because we debruced and we said we were going to pave roads. So you have to then transfer that money out of your general fund because it rolled over and allocate it to those projects that you're projecting in that next year.

Haley Sue Robinson 13:34

Got it. Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 13:35

There's no way that that because we budgeted. It doesn't budget a year a year in advance. That money doesn't just go to your general fund account, your regular checking account. It always just goes back into your savings.

Haley Sue Robinson 13:47

Okay. So you would have to make that transfer when when the promise was made to the voters about debrucing and allocating the the funds towards roads, we had to make the transfer. It's it wasn't an automatic. Nope. Got it. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. I think that's helpful for folks to understand. Um, I thought uh another really interesting piece of your presentation from last night was the 27.3 million in secured grant funding.

Heather Graham, Mayor 14:14

Yeah.

Council Timeline And No New Positions

Haley Sue Robinson 14:14

Um, and that's through October of 2025. So we still have um a couple of months left in the year. Um that's roughly a split of 63% from uh federal grants, 35 from state, and a small point six six percent um with foundation grants. Uh airport and public transit received uh the large majority of the highest grant awards in the city. And um we had 5.8 million that was declined for uh grant funding, but there's an additional 2.9 million in progress for a potential award. And so that would put us over $30 million um in 2025. I think that's a that's a pretty significant number. Um $30 million just doesn't seem like a like a no big deal. Uh it feels like a big win. Um so I I thought maybe we could talk about how those grant dollars help when we're talking about the budget and when you're talking about uh reductions for the future and and why that maybe won't stall progress um as we look into 2026.

Heather Graham, Mayor 15:26

Yeah, so the grant dollars are almost you know 99.9% use for capital.

Haley Sue Robinson 15:31

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 15:32

Right? So for uh very specific projects that we have to go out and say, hey, we want, you know, six new hangers, t hangers built at our airport. We're gonna apply for a grant in order to get these. Or we want, you know, two new hybrid buses for transit. So we're very strategic in what our asks are. Um we can't just, you know, go in and say, we have an $11 million deficit in our budget. We need eleven million dollars for operations in the city. They're not gonna

Haley Sue Robinson 16:03

They're not going to take pity on us and be like, yeah, that sounds great. We'll help you.

Heather Graham, Mayor 16:06

So it's very strategic and planned for what we're asking for. Um and it's always for a larger picture, but we we include that in our um budget because if you think about it, the city uh has almost taken an additional thirty million dollars right in projects that we are not even

Haley Sue Robinson 16:31

The tax payers don't even think about, it's not coming out of our city sales tax. It's coming out of our state, yeah, state sales tax or federal.

Heather Graham, Mayor 16:36

Correct.

Haley Sue Robinson 16:37

Um not saying it's not public funds, but it's not the money that we spend here in Pueblo.

Heather Graham, Mayor 16:43

Right. Um and so you have to account for what what is that, you know, what are the strings that are attached to those dollars?

Haley Sue Robinson 16:51

Sure.

Heather Graham, Mayor 16:51

It's it's additional staff, right? Because you have to be able to have people to monitor um and manage these projects. Um that's kind of where we saw the the staff increase over the last several years was because we received multimillion dollars um worth of funding, whether it's uh safe streets for all grants and roundabouts and paving and curb and gutter um or the boathouse or um Main and Union revitalization. I mean, there's so many there's so many projects that we receive uh funding for, but we have to have people do those projects.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:28

Right.

Heather Graham, Mayor 17:29

So it's uh it's kind of a double-edged sword.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:31

Okay. But I think one thing in particular, what you know, so we mentioned transit and airport. Um one thing that we've seen that's been a huge benefit to Pueblo is um the paving at the at the airport. Um, you know, earlier this year we received a paving award, which um is kind of an anomaly. We saw we went to that awards conference, and most of the time it was, you know, uh a streetway or a public ride-of-way, um, even like a highway type of um project rather than like an airport that maybe not every person in Pueblo drives. Um and then as you mentioned, hangers. I know we had an award last week, and that's been something that for the last couple of years we've had a lot of citizens ask, you know, when are we gonna get more hangers and when can we increase our our revenue generation out at the airport? And so I think it's pretty incredible to see these large um multi-millions invested into transportation and and how that's gonna shape Pueblo's future for how we serve our citizens or how we attract more people to be in Pueblo.

Heather Graham, Mayor 18:42

Right.

Haley Sue Robinson 18:42

So um thirty million dollars is pretty incredible.

Heather Graham, Mayor 18:46

Kudos to our grant writer.

Haley Sue Robinson 18:47

Yeah. And we have one grant writer.

Heather Graham, Mayor 18:50

We have one grant writer, and there's many working parts in the city between reporting and finance, um, or each department kind of has, you know, a person or a team of people who does the reporting to make sure that we're meeting the deadlines.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:06

Right.

Heather Graham, Mayor 19:06

Um and it's kind of been an interesting time for the grants, uh, because right, like if the federal government um is shut down, then there's like holds and you know, we don't know if we're gonna receive our funding or it's just this game we're continuously playing.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:26

Yeah, we had some um conversation, you know, in February with the the large EPA Brownfield grant that we received. Um I know we received a lot of inquiries of like, are you actually gonna receive this grant? Um and it's it's significant because it's a five-year grant. Um and and I think for the most part, Pueblo's been pretty lucky with um our our retention of these funds and being able to move these projects forward. So great. Um, anything else about the budget that you think we should cover or you wanted to explain a little bit more about?

Heather Graham, Mayor 20:01

I don't think so. I think we touched on it last night. Um City Council did not ask for any additional work sessions. Um I'm sure we'll see some questions for them.

Haley Sue Robinson 20:11

Sure.

Heather Graham, Mayor 20:12

Maybe over the next week. The public hearing will be on October 27th.

Haley Sue Robinson 20:17

Monday, yeah.

Heather Graham, Mayor 20:18

With the first reading for the budget, uh second meeting in November, final reading, fourth meeting in November. So still have some time. Um we could we might see some amendments um come forward or some different proposals come forward. Um, but at this time we have not been requested to uh provide any additional information on the 2026 proposed.

Haley Sue Robinson 20:43

Okay, great. I think one more thing to um maybe mention is uh there are there are gonna be no new positions in the city as far as staffing goes.

Community Cleanups And Discounts

Heather Graham, Mayor 20:55

Yeah, no new positions this is our second year that we have done. Um we get lots of requests from departments for additional positions. Last year we approved an accountant for um half cent sales tax fund, paid out of the half-cent sales tax fund, and we approved six positions for the new fire stations. But I mean

Haley Sue Robinson 21:15

outside of that, there were no

Heather Graham, Mayor 21:16

there were no new positions granted, and this year there was no positions at all.

Haley Sue Robinson 21:21

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 21:22

And I think we abolished seven positions um with an overall savings of two hundred and forty one thousand because some of those positions were grant funded previously.

Haley Sue Robinson 21:34

Sure.

Heather Graham, Mayor 21:34

Um, and so when those grants run out, um if the city doesn't want to continue to pick up and and pay those wages, um we have to abolish them and um move on.

Haley Sue Robinson 21:47

Got it. So abolished 18 last year and seven this year.

Heather Graham, Mayor 21:53

Yeah. Okay. So I mean that's you know, that's

Haley Sue Robinson 21:56

That's significant.

Heather Graham, Mayor 21:57

Right? It yeah, we're making our way a little by little by little, um, just to reduce, especially if um we're not doing the projects that we were doing, you know, several years ago.

Haley Sue Robinson 22:08

So or they're completed.

Heather Graham, Mayor 22:09

Or they're completed, yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 22:10

Okay. Great. Um, well, we have some upcoming events. We did have a really successful team up to cleanup this past weekend.

Heather Graham, Mayor 22:20

Yeah, it was we had a lot, we had uh lots of volunteers. Shout out to everybody who showed up and hung with us all day. We had some citizens volunteers, we had um city employees who were there, and some city employees' kids who even showed up uh to help us.

Haley Sue Robinson 22:40

I think it was the most volunteers we've had for

Heather Graham, Mayor 22:42

Take away the trash, so it was pretty good.

Halloween Events And Pink Patch

Haley Sue Robinson 22:44

Yeah, it was great. Um, but speaking of cleanup, so if folks were unable to join us for team up to cleanup, uh the city has our discount days with waste connections. That's uh October 20th through November 1st, and that's a 50% discount on all loads. And one question we get a lot is um, so how much does that cost? People ask, like, what is the 50% discount? It it depends on how big your load is. So if you have a load with just a mattress, um, you'd get half off of that. But if you have a big load with lots of trash or branches, leaves, other household waste, it it would be more expensive and it would be 50% of whatever that cost would be. So if it's normally 40, it'll be 20. If it's normally a hundred, it'll be fifty. Um and waste connections uh landfill hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. until 5, and then Saturday from 8 a.m. till 1, and they are located at 5715 West State Highway 78. Um so just south of town, it's pretty easy to get there, and you have till November 1st to take an opportunity to um take advantage of the of the discounts, so that'll be good too. Um we also have the trunk-or-treat for El Centro this Saturday um from four to seven, and there is trick-or-treating at City Hall on Halloween. And there's trick-or-treating on the HARP. Oh yes. Uh Fright Night on the HARP.

Heather Graham, Mayor 24:24

And it's big. I got a booth and it's the entire river walk, and it's

Haley Sue Robinson 24:30

It's probably one of the biggest Halloween events we have in the city, right?

Heather Graham, Mayor 24:33

I mean, it's like you can't even walk. There's so many kids and cool costumes and fun. HARP puts pumpkins out for, you know, everyone to come grab a pumpkin if you um choose to do so. They do costume contests. It's cool. It's pretty cool.

Haley Sue Robinson 24:51

Okay.

Heather Graham, Mayor 24:51

Yeah, it's pretty busy.

Haley Sue Robinson 24:53

So we have uh two opportunities for that this weekend.

Heather Graham, Mayor 24:56

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 24:57

Um trick-or-treating at City Hall next week. Um Halloween is already next week.

Heather Graham, Mayor 25:04

It's crazy.

Haley Sue Robinson 25:04

Friday next week, uh two to four. And you can find out more information on our Facebook page. Another thing that we every time we have this podcast this month, we haven't talked about is the patch. So and then we get finished, and I said we didn't talk about the patch. So it is um October, it's breast cancer awareness month. Um, so you might see the police department has their pink patches, which is really cool. Um, but another thing they did was they have the wrap.

Heather Graham, Mayor 25:38

Pink wrap, yep. And we've seen kind of all different departments all over Colorado doing that.

Haley Sue Robinson 25:44

It's really cool. So um, you know, we have a lot of support for uh cancer research and cancer center here in in Pueblo, but I thought it was really neat that we got to wrap a vehicle for breast cancer awareness. So you might see that um out around town as well during October. Um so it's pretty cool. And I know the fire department does their pink shirts. I saw Chief with his pink patch shirt yesterday too. So very cool to see people supporting breast cancer awareness month.

Heather Graham, Mayor 26:16

Absolutely.

Haley Sue Robinson 26:17

Yeah. Finally remembered.

Heather Graham, Mayor 26:20

Good job. It's only been sitting here all month.

Closing And Contact Info

Haley Sue Robinson 26:22

I like every time I put it there, and I'm like, okay, we're gonna talk about it, and then we don't. Okay. Anything else, Mayor, that we need to know about?

Heather Graham, Mayor 26:29

I think we're good.

Haley Sue Robinson 26:30

Okay, great. Well, thank you for joining us on the Mayor's Mixtape. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, BuzzSprout, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. Um, you can also watch on local channel seventeen and email us your questions or topic suggestions, mayor@pueblo.us. And we will see you next week.