The Wellington town board on Dec. 8 unanimously adopted an $8.4 million budget to operate town government and make capital improvements, such as street repairs, in 2010.

No Wellington citizens turned out to comment at the public hearing.

The new budget is lower than the 2009 budget of $9.19 million, a change that reflects declining revenue projections in some areas.

Wellington is lowering its forecast on sales tax and use tax collections for th coming year. The town estimates it will bring in $635,000 from those taxes by the end of 2009, but it is estimating lower 2010 revenue at $585,500.

Wellington is holding ground on property tax collections, however, by anticipating general fund income of $683,009, which is slightly more than this year. The town’s tax levy on property will remain the same at 14.230 mills.

The adopted town budget will support 25 full-time employees, two part-time employees and about 12 seasonal workers hired in the summer by the parks, recreation and public works departments. There will be no salary increases next year unless an employee qualifies for a merit raise of up to 2 percent.

The new budget includes $628,000 for the annual contract with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement for the community. The contract provides the town with the services of one sergeant and four deputies, along with related costs for equipment and crime investigation services.

Once again, the town budget includes $2 million for the potential purchase of an additional water source. The allocation was also in the 2009 budget, but the money will not be spent this year.

By the numbers

Every year, budget and finance directors for local governments hear from the Larimer County Assessor how property values add up in their geographic areas. Wellington’s actual value, also called market value, surpassed $522 million this year. The largest portion of that — $409 million — comes from residential property. Commercial property values total $35 million. In Colorado, business properties pay 3.6 times the amount of property taxes as residential properties with the same market value.

From the market value, the assessor determines the community’s assessed value for taxing purposes. In Wellington, the value is just over $54 million. From that, Wellington town government collects $683,000 of property taxes for the general fund and $87,000 to make payments on long-term bonds.

Wellington’s sales tax revenue saw substantial growth and then a downturn over the past six years. Annual sales tax collection peaked in 2007 at $617,563. In 2008, even with new, large businesses opening in town, sales taxes fell to $608,548.

Finance director Mike Cummins explained that the primary cause of the odd timing for a dip in revenue was a one-time anomaly that pushed sales tax revenue abnormally high in 2007.

“Otherwise, general sales tax revenue from Wellington’s primary vendors was up in 2008 over 2007,” Cummins said.

Now, with the global economic downturn, Wellington is also seeing lower sales tax income this year. Even so, the projected income of $575,000 is much better than the $289,504 that Wellington collected from sales taxes in 2004.

If Wellington residents think back to ’04, there was no Main Street Market, no Ace Hardware and no Kum & Go. Numerous smaller businesses have also established a presence in the last few years, helping to boost sales taxes from the first half of the decade.

Wellington had its heyday when it comes to collecting use taxes on building materials in 2004. That was the year the town issued 296 residential building permits and collected more than $707,000 in taxes. (The total use tax includes commercial and remodel building permits.)

In comparison, Wellington has issued 13 residential permits this year and will collect about $60,000 in use taxes.

The town saw the biggest change in this tax revenue sector between 2006 and 2007 when revenue from use taxes dropped from $549,705 to $255,650.

If one combines sales and use tax income annually over the past six years, the two together topped $1 million in 2005 and have steadily declined since.

To run town government without drastic changes, Wellington is offsetting some of the lost revenue by dipping into fund balances that built up during the boom years. If revenue and expenses for 2010 follow predictions, the town’s fund balances will be at $3.4 million at the end of the year.

Details about the town budget are available in the town board meeting packet for the Dec. 8 meeting. It is available online at www.townofwellington.com. For past news articles about work sessions on the town budget, see www.thewellingtonweekly.com.