Colorado Springs' cleanup crews to move to Public Works
Colorado Springs' Public Works department will be tasked with more cleanup work and personnel next year, but possibly not additional funding from plastic bag fees.
The 'neighborhood services' division, which includes code enforcement officials and crews that clean up and remove homeless encampments, will move from the Planning to Public Works department in the proposed 2025 budget . City staff say the shift is currently underway, even though the new setup won't become official until the budget takes effect in January.
The neighborhood services division is set for a budget increase from $3.4 million to $3.9 million.
In addition to the move, the division is budgeted to add a new four-person 'quality of life' team to work on encampment removals and other large-scale cleanups. That team will largely be created by shifting vacant positions into Public Works, with only one new city position created.
Public Works oversees other programs such as the Keep it Clean road cleanups and the WorkCOS jobs program for homeless residents. Public Works' Operations and Maintenance Division Manager Corey Farkas said that overlap was the same reason the forestry division had previously moved into the department.
The move also provides cleanup teams easier access to trucks and equipment that protects cleanup crews from health and safety risks at encampments. Farkas said there was an instance in early October where a neighborhood services team had to call in a truck from Public Works after theirs broke down.
"I would equate this with being a group that is responsive and has the resources to be able to respond to different requests as they come in," Farkas said.
Colorado Springs' plans are opaque for the revenue from the 10 cent fee put in place after the state legislature enacted a single-use plastics ban in 2021. The city keeps 60% of the bag fees and is required to put it into cleanup and waste diversion programs.
Colorado Springs collected roughly $1 million from the carryout bag fees in both 2023 and 2024 but the city budget only spent $110 of that funding last year. Finance Director Charae McDaniel said the city held off on budgeting the funds because they did not have a "solid estimate" of what it would collect.
In the proposed 2025 budget, the spending of the collected bag fees jumps to $1.9 million. The bag money will be moved to the General Fund for broad "city clean up programs."
City spokesperson Max D'Onofrio emphasized the bag fees were not being tied to the new quality of life team, though it could qualify for the funding.
Officals said the bag fees are also not being used to expand the other cleanup programs that fall under Public Works.
"There is an appetite to grow that (WorkCOS) team but as everybody knows, we are bound by the revenues we are able to take in," Farkas said.
