COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade has released his proposed 2027 budget for the city, and after a year of savings, the proposal for next year is an increase of about $110 million compared to 2026.
The total funds in the proposed 2027 budget is $1,025,130,213 compared to $914,244,032 in 2026. About $465 million of the proposed 2027 is the general fund, which is largely made up of sales tax revenue.
"What we're really focusing on is maintaining the services that we're providing, maintaining our infrastructure, and in a couple of places, adding in," Chief Financial Officer Charae McDaniel told reporters Monday morning.
The budget includes more than $2.5 million that was out of the 2026 budget because of unpaid furlough days taken by city employees. The mayor is also looking for technology upgrades for the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) and the addition of a dedicated pothole crew, which would cost taxpayers about $370,000 for four full time employees.
McDaniel said the budget proposal includes $16.1 million for employee compensation, which includes pay raises for certain employees.
The 2027 budget tells a very different story from the budget process one year ago. At the time the city was figuring out how to solve an anticipated $31 million budget shortfall. It cut one percent of city staff and required employees to take days off without pay. The city says those efforts helped solve the shortfall.
"What we're seeing is better sales tax revenue collections than we had anticipated in 2026. So when we built the 2026 budget, of course, we were at the end of 2025, and we were building that budget based on our sales tax forecast at that time," McDaniel said.
With sales tax revenues better than expected for the city, the city is also proposing to remove the furlough day in November city employees were scheduled to take.
The budget is now in the hands of Colorado Springs City Council, where several hearings will take place before a final version will be passed.
