August 13, 2009 02:02 AM UTC

Small Change Could Equal Budget Relief

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• by: redstateblues

In his monthly e-mail to constituents, Councilman at-large Doug Linkhart proposes that the city and county of Denver find a way to nickel and dime its way out of the current budget shortfall–in a good way.

How can a bunch of quarters help fill our $120 million budget gap?  By doing what Chicago recently did, and letting someone else manage our parking meter collections.

Earlier this year the city of Chicago sold the management and revenue stream for its parking meters to a private business for $1.2 billion.  The city is using about half of this income for budget relief and investing the other half to generate interest to replace the annual revenues from parking meters.  The city still issues parking tickets and retains those revenues and any meter rate increases are capped.  

Denver’s meter revenues are somewhat smaller than Chicago’s, at about $9 million per year, roughly 40% of Chicago’s.  If we could find a similar buyer, for even $300 million, we could also invest part of the money, use some to cover our deficit and perhaps set part of it aside in an innovation fund for employee ideas for saving money in the future.

Considering other city government officials are proposing massive budget cuts, or tax increases, to cover the current $120 million budget gap, this idea couldn’t come at a better time. If the city can find an interested contractor, this could go a long way towards balancing the budget.