COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade has said he wants to see “minimal impacts” to public safety as the city faces a $31 million budget shortfall.
Earlier this month, the city announced steps it’s taking amid the shortfall. It includes mandatory furlough days, and additional furlough days for employees making more than $72,000 a year.
Additionally about 40 civilians jobs are being cut across the city.
In his “State of the City” address at The Broadmoor Thursday morning, Mobolade said “public safety is, and will remain, a top priority for my administration.” The Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC sponsors the event at the resort every year.
While public safety is the priority, the Colorado Springs Police Department is not immune to the budget impacts facing the city. CSPD is currently implementing what it called “significant overtime restrictions” in a presentation given to city council members last month.
Chief of Police Adrian Vasquez said the cuts on overtime will not impact police response to incidents like a barricaded suspect, Vasquez gave as an ecxample.
“We used to spend a lot more time doing community engagement,” Vasquez said, community engagement is where officers go out to neighborhoods to establish relationships in the community, “we had to back up on those kinds of things that are not about the response or targeting of prolific offenders, the response to investigations of crime, that's the balance, we really have to pay attention and strike.”
For 2025, CSPD has a budget of $4,952,704 for overtime. Typically when CSPD goes over that it can pull from other sources in the budget to make up for the cost, that’s not the case anymore. The 2026 budget has not been approved by city council, but the proposed budget includes the same amount as 2025 for overtime.
“Here's the thing, I want to make sure I also message to my officers, which I have done, we will never impact the safety of those officers,” Vasquez said about cutting back on overtime. Vasquez said the communication to officers inside the department includes supervisors looking at the needs for operation and the necessary number of officers to complete it.
Overtime is not the only concern for CSPD, Vasquez said grant money just ended last week for a DUI enforcement grant.
“So now we have to really balance do we do as much DUI enforcement? That's where we may see some impact,” Vasquez said, “we're going to have to find the money for things like that, there may be impacts on things just like that.”
There are other ways CSPD is managing costs, including cutting back on high cost items like vehicles.
“We've done really well at replacing vehicles over the last couple of years. Do we have to do that for the next two years? Let's take that budget, move it over to things like overtime,” Vasquez said.
Despite the budget impacts, Vasquez pointed to improvement on response times by CSPD and the 911 call center.
“When I look at what's happening in our community, I’m really pleased that when you look at our crime stats, they are looking better than I can remember in the last years,” Vasquez said.
Numbers from CSPD showas of August of this year, homicide and manslaughter cases are down 34 percent and motor vehicle thefts are down 43 percent.
“That speaks volumes to a lot of things,” Vasquez said.
_____
_____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
