City of Colorado Springs looks to recover financially from Covid-19

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- With Covid-19 shutting down practically the entire city for more than a month, many were concerned with how badly this would impact the economy.

City Council President Richard Skorman said, “We get a lot of our revenue from sales tax. And sales tax here means tourism and it also means lots of people, consumers buying individual goods and restaurants and it’s going to be a big hit for us. Over 55% of our revenue comes from sales tax.”

Skorman said they have $38 million in reserves but have a $350 million budget. Skorman hopes that there will be federal funding but knows there are other governments on the list.

“We are worried about it, we are trying to prepare for it. The good thing is we do have a good fund balance and we should be able to use some of the reserves; but again, it won’t last forever,” said Skorman.

When Skorman became president of City Council this is something he would have never expected. Moving forward, Skorman says the council will be very careful about how they spend money.

“We have our $20 million cut that the mayor put in place for all departments, the hiring freeze -- we are just going to be very cautious about how we spend money and public safety is number one. We will spend money on that before anything else and we hope we don’t have to make other cuts,” he said.

And Skorman says we still have a great city where people will want to visit and live, so people are urged to be patient and be appreciative of each other.