City of Boulder, CO Inside Boulder News, 22 Feb 2019

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From YouTube: Inside Boulder News - February 22, 2019

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This week on Inside Boulder News: Keep Families Housed, Sales Tax Revenues and Boulder International Film Festival.

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This week on inside boulder news, thanks to this partnership, families in the city are on the road to stability. Retail sales. Tax revenues grew in 2018, find out what this means for the city of Boulder and don't miss the 15th annual holder, International Film Festival.

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Welcome to inside boulder news your source for all things: Boulder I'm, Jocelyn, Navin Daniel at the end of 2017 retail sales, tax revenues for the city were flat, and business and construction use tax, wrap previous year's levels. With this flattening staff projected a decrease in sales tax revenue for 2018 as well, but 20 team turned out to bring better than expected numbers. We spoke to Joe Wagner tax and special projects manager to find out what this means for the city of Boulder. The city sells a news.

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Tax revenue consists of four main subcategories of tax retail sales, business and consumer use, construction use and motor vehicle sales and use tax sales.

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And use tax make up almost one-third of the city's total revenues in almost one-half of revenues when excluding utility revenues such as water and wastewater at.

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The end of 2017 retail sales tax revenues were flat and it was projected that the same story was going to continue on for 2018. However, 2018 s numbers painted a better outcome for the city sales and use tax revenues in.

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Total we saw an increase of almost four and a half percent to nearly 141 million dollars for the year sales tax revenues, which make up a majority of this amount, grew by about 2.8 percent in 2018. This.

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Is 1.8 percent more than what the city staff had originally projected? These tax revenues represents a significant source of funding for city services, such as police and fire, as well as the library and arts in.

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Addition, sales and use taxes are an important source of funding for dedicated service funds such as open space and mountain parks, parks and recreation and transportation, so both our roads and our multi-use paths. This.

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Increase in revenue was primarily driven by strengths in a few areas, including restaurants, general retail and online retailers. Looking.

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At the geographic distribution of sales tax, almost of the growth that we saw in 2018 was generated in out of state or out of city sales. What this is is online retailers who are emitting sales tax or online sellers of software and taxable services that are selling into the city of Boulder. The.

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City's finance department releases monthly revenue reports for the city of Boulder. If you would like to find out more head on over to the website. Seen on screen the emergency, Family, Assistance, Association or ephah is a community-based safety net organization that has been helping families in need across Boulder, since 1918 Ewa, along with the city's Human Services Department partnered, on a pilot program in 2017 aimed to prevent families falling into homelessness. Thanks to this program, no participating families went on house. I was.

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Born into the hundreds of families experiencing homelessness and Boulder, the.

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Average fo family spent over 70% of their income on housing costs, but it isn't just boulders. Surveys show that three-quarters of families from the Denver metro region become homeless because of economic factors. The other.

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Quarter is typically around relationship issues, either its domestic violence, which is a big factor. It could be the death of a spouse, divorce, I,.

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Am one of four hundred kids in town that doesn't always have a permanent address, FM.

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The city of Boulder wanted to help in 2017 the city's Human Services Department, and the emergency family assistance. Association partnered on a pilot program called keep. Families housed an effort to expand the program's rental assistance to families in need. The partnership.

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With ephah on keep families housed was a great opportunity for us to really build on the support and the partnerships. We've had with a lot of community organizations, including Etha for a long time, so not just to help families when they're in crisis, but to use that as an opportunity to protect them from future crisis by building up their resilience against future shocks and helping them build a stronger base of support for family stability. Fo.

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Traditionally has given people that were in distress with their rent at one time a year, $500 payment to help them with the city. We've expanded that to three payments of $500 a year, so that most of you get in the year would be fifteen hundred dollars in.

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The first year about three hundred and fifty families participated in the key families health program, approximately two hundred and fifty of those families went through the program's three payments. Thanks to this, no participating families went on how's information.

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That we picked up showed that housing hardships fell, people that had difficulty paying rent reduced from about 70 to 43 percent, so significant improvements in housing, stability overall.

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Families in the program had a significant improvement in money management, income, employment, food security and housing stability. Thanks to the success of the pilot, both this city and ephah plan to continue on with the program. It's.

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Extremely difficult for low-income households to make ends meet, so we think that this can be scaled up and expanded upon to provide a in a more essential floor under people in Boulder that are raising kids more.

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Information on the key family's house program can be found by visiting boulder colorado. Gov forward, slash homelessness, to learn more about fo services head on over to fo org.

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Have you ever wanted to be a first responder or maybe test your limits in an emergency situation? This is your chance. Registration is now open for Boulder Fire, Department citizens, vault Fire Academy back for its sixth year, the citizens wildfire Academy is a free five week course that gives community members the opportunity to learn about wildfire risk in our area and learn about how wildfires are fought. Among other topics, participants will meet once a week on Tuesday evenings and attend one Saturday, hands-on.

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Training this course is free to those who live or work in Boulder, eighteen or older, and successfully pass a background check. Applications are due by March 15th and are available online. If.

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There's not snow on the ground, there's potential for a wildfire and with our typical weather patterns and our winds. The fire is like we've seen in California in the recent years are definitely potential here. So the more we can do from the fire department standpoint and that community engagement piece, the better.

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20:19 marks the 15th year in which the boulder international film festival attracts more than 25 thousand movie buffs to the city of Boulder. The festival is sponsored in part by the city of Boulder. It brings together films and filmmakers from around the world for a four-day celebration of cinema. This year you might recognize some familiar guests at the festival, such as singer, David, Crosby and actor and millio Estevez. The festival kicks off on Thursday February 28th and runs until Sunday March 3rd.

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You can enjoy special screenings, filmmaker happy hours, musicians and much more tickets are going fast, so head to be IFF one.com to get your seats reserved. Thank you so much for joining us on this week's edition of inside Boulder news. If you have pictures news tips or eventually to see featured, we love to hear from you connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also sign up to receive video updates right in your inbox. Just go to Boulder channel 8, comm and click on subscribe have a good week.