Foothills is already in the top tier of tax rates and has sufficient annual income. In 2007 Foothills had an aggregate income of about $24,138,000. Their total operating and non operating expenditures exceeded $24,633,000 for this same period. Foothills needs to live within its means. The mill levy would make Foothills the highest taxed recreation district in the entire state. It simply needs to be managed better.
A tax increase is the lazy way out.
Foothills is in a mess because of financial mismanagement. Under the prior administration, Foothills management has overextended the district's means by developing overly expensive facilities, for which it has not developed sufficient means to repay, and they have acquired yet more property, without a plan how to maintain it. Now they want to take the easy way out again and simply tax you instead of making ends meet with their already high revenue stream.
This would be hard work -- but three of the five current Board members are term limited and leaving the Board. Apparently they would prefer to tax you and leave with their reputations intact rather than doing the hard work to get Foothills to live within its means. To our knowledge, at least one of the other, continuing Board members opposes the mill levy and feels that Foothills can make do with what it has.
Foothills provides excellent quality maintenance to some of its facilities and shamefully neglects others, such as the area located in Mesa View Estates, our neighborhood park. Currently, Foothills collects about $300,000 from us in annual property taxes (set to rise to over $500,000), for which they spend about $100,000 in maintaining the local facilities. The rest is siphoned into the Foothills operating budget. The park is poorly maintained. Have you noted the areas unsprinkled, the total absence of maintenance and weed control in the batting cage area? How about the stagnant water and overgrown area at the bottom of the detention area and the pot holes in the parking lot? Truly, we are not getting our money's worth from Foothills Recreation District.
By increasing the efficiency of its maintenance operations and taking other steps as outlined below, all facilities can have professional upkeep.
We believe there is no need to close any facilities such as the Sixth Avenue West pool or the Columbine pool. The amount of money saved by closing them is microscopic compared to the Foothills budget. We believe threatening pool closures is simply a scare tactic: Pools are one of the key facilities that a park and recreation district provides and there would be no real budgetary benefit to closing them.
Because there is no real economic benefit to closing pools, we believe that threatening to close pools if the mill levy is not passed, such as the current Board has done, is political extortion.
Foothills hasn't shown much creativity in trying to solve its problems before demanding a tax hike. Has the district investigated creative solutions, such as selling naming rights and advertising space in their high trafficked Peak facility? (The Robert A. Easton Park is named after the former Executive Director who held the office when this financial predicament developed.) Have they investigated funding from exclusivity agreements with vendors (such as soft drinks)? Have they investigated improved concession sales? Sharing costs of common expenses with other rec. districts? Increasing charitable contributions from individuals, corporations, government grants, and philanthropic institutions? Offering more classes in high-demand topic areas? Partnering with third parties to use conference facilities at low-use times? There are many ways Foothills can solve its financial problems without raising your taxes.
A tax increase is the lazy way out -- but not the ONLY way out. Instead we would have Foothills do the hard work of running the district as a business. There are many steps Foothills could take to get their finances under control and still providing the same quality of service: Restructuring, privitizing, better advertising, determining the elasticity of demand, adjusting fees and the difference between member and non-member fees, innovative fee packages, increasing staff productivity, restructuring the debt to lower the annual debt service amount are just a few.
An organization with a $24,000,000/year budget needs professional Board oversight.
We are both seasoned businessmen who will bring financial maturity to Foothills.
Thank you for your vote.