Roger Baker, County Manager.  With budget hearings just a few weeks away, the Gilpin County Commissioners held yet another joint work session with the County’s department heads and elected officials this week.

Obviously, no one is better equipped than these folks to decide what resources are absolutely necessary to perform their departments’ and offices’ core functions, and to propose areas where financial savings might be realized.

There’s actually been a bit of good news on the financial front for the County lately.

First, the two gaming checks (one from the original limited gaming fund, the second from the extended gaming authorized by Amendment 50 four years ago) were actually a little larger—about $28,000 more—than those same checks one year ago.

Despite the decreased reliance by Coloradans on traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, the amount of gas tax-funded Highway User Tax Fund the County collects was up about $4,000.

And as I mentioned in a previous column, the mineral severance tax that the County receives is also significantly higher, by about $88,500, partly because of the increase in oil and gas drilling activity in the state, partly because of our efforts with the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) to credit us with all the employees who work in the industry and actually live in the unincorporated areas of the County.

Still, those are pretty small amounts in the overall scheme of County finances; the Commissioners will have to look at avenues for reducing expenses as well.

And that’s where Tuesday’s brainstorming session with the department directors and elected officials came in.

The elected officials, department directors, and their representatives (a few people couldn’t make it) came up with an excellent list of 50 ideas.

Everything was on the table, and the suggestions ranged from the really broad to the very specific. Some deal with increasing revenues, others with decreasing expenses, and a great many toward ways the County might work more efficiently.

Now that the ideas have been broached, however, there will have to be a period of prioritization and reality-testing. Some ideas might make a lot of sense, but the implementation would cost more than any benefits derived. Other ideas would have clear-cut savings but long-term consequences that would be impossible to predict.

There was even some discussion of new programs and services that it would be really nice to provide, and which could benefit a number of our citizens; the question then becomes how much such programs would cost, and how to fund them.

Overshadowing all these suggestions, however, was the knowledge that they will prove completely inadequate if Amendment 68, allowing a massive casino at the Arapahoe Park racetrack, passes. In that case, far more draconian budget cuts—or corresponding revenue increases—will become absolutely essential in 2015.

On the other hand, the County continues to press ahead with its legal action against the state treasurer; success in that arena could gain us nearly $900,000 annually in gaming tax revenues that are (in our opinion) being illegally diverted to Teller County. And the ongoing battle with DOLA over gaming impact grant allocation could also produce significantly more funding in the year ahead.

It’s hard to plan when there are so many items outstanding, but the Commissioners are charged with preparing a balanced budget every year, so they have to give it a try.