In October of 2022, the Fort Collins City Council passed Resolution 2022-108, which set a goal to reduce community greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 50% compared to 2005 levels by 2026. In November of 2023, the voters approved a sales tax increase to help pay for programs that would reduce community GHG pollution.
The Fort Collins Sustainability Group (FCSG) was therefore surprised to see no mention of the 2026 goal in the City Manager’s recommended budget for 2025-2026, and no estimates of how climate-related budget offers would help reduce GHG pollution.
The FCSG reviewed all the City’s budget offers earlier this summer. We have since discussed those with City staff, and were told that staff would be able to provide estimates of the impacts of climate-related budget offers on community GHG pollution in September.
We call on members of City Council to ask staff to provide those estimates during the Council work session scheduled to discuss the recommended 2025-2026 budget on September 10th. Without this information, it will not be possible for council to make informed budget decisions to support the achievement of its 2026 climate pollution reduction goal.
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Update: On September 10th, city staff released a memo providing information on the impacts that eleven of the recommended budget offers would have on reducing climate pollution. That memo is available here.
