The wrong kind of infrastructure
Boulder has more than doubled its communications staff since 2019. Its police force is smaller, and its police headquarters leaks.
BOULDER, Colo. Since 2019, the City of Boulder has more than doubled the number of people it employs to communicate with the public. Over the same period, its police department has gotten smaller.
The buildings behind the city’s emergency response have been left to wear out. By the city’s own account, its police headquarters and two of its fire stations are failing, and the police building has no funded replacement. When city staff move into their new consolidated offices next year, every department will be housed there except two: police and fire.
Violent and property crime in Boulder have both fallen in recent years, in line with trends across Colorado. The question is what the city has chosen to invest in, and who it has chosen to hire, while the basics of public safety wore out.
MORE MESSENGERS
In 2019, Boulder’s communications department had about 15 full-time positions, according to city budget figures compiled by PLAN-Boulder. By 2025 it had 33, an increase of 116 percent. In 2015, it had eight and a half.
The city manager’s office grew 84 percent over the same stretch. Citywide, staffing rose from about 1,426 full-time positions in 2019 to about 1,548 in this year’s budget, and the cost of personnel rose from $149 million to $205 million between 2019 and 2025.
The city has said part of the communications growth came from pulling communications staff out of individual departments into one central office. Even so, Boulder now employs more city workers per resident than most of its peers. Among 22 college towns and similar cities compared by PLAN-Boulder using their own budget documents, Boulder ranked in the top five.
FEWER OFFICERS
The police department went the other direction. It had about 288 full-time positions in 2019 and about 281 in this year’s budget, a count that includes civilian staff and, for part of that period, code enforcement workers transferred in from another department.
Fire-Rescue grew over the same period, from 123 positions to about 140, largely to staff a new station.
THE BUILDINGS THAT RESPOND
At police headquarters, according to city materials, the heating, electrical and plumbing systems have outlived their expected lifespan. Leaks are frequent enough to raise concerns about mold, and leaking lines have forced invasive repairs through the ceilings. The main sewer line, original to the building, is corroding. The elevator is often out of order. The building’s layout and size no longer fit how the department works.
The city estimates a replacement at $170 million, at a site it hasn’t chosen, and says it has no other plan to fund one.
At Fire Stations 1 and 5, the city says, the original windows in the sleeping quarters no longer seal, letting in water and cold air faster than the heat can keep up. The boiler and roof are at the end of their life. Neither station can properly keep carcinogens from contaminated gear out of the kitchens and bathrooms firefighters live in during their shifts. At Station 5, leaking pipes rotted floor beams badly enough that they had to be repaired.
Fixing both stations would cost about $7 million, according to the city.
GOALS WITHOUT DEADLINES
In 2020, Boulder Fire-Rescue’s master plan set two response targets to reach by 2022, including cutting the time for the first advanced life support provider to reach the most serious medical calls from 10 minutes, 46 seconds to 8 minutes, measured at the 90th percentile.
The city’s 2025 budget lists the same goals, starting from the same times. The deadline is gone, and the budget doesn’t say whether either target has been met.
CONNECTIONS
In its budget, the city describes the guiding principle of its communications department as “Creating Connections for a Thriving Community and Democracy.”
At police headquarters, the city says, the elevator is often out of order.
