The Aurora City Council has given initial approval to new council rules that would require members to include a fiscal note, or cost estimate, with proposals that are coming before the body for a vote.

Council approved an ordinance on first reading at its Monday council meeting. The bill will return for a second reading before receiving final approval.

Councilmember Alison Coombs co-sponsored the bill with Councilmember Juan Marcano after the two said council developed a pattern of bringing proposals forward without a budgetary analysis, leaving council in the dark about the cost of some policies it was adopting.

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Coombs thanked Marcano and city staff for their work on the bill and said it’s important because the city is quickly growing and might not always be in the financial position it is today.

“I think it’s important because we do have a lot of different services,” Coombs said.

The new rules would make councilmembers responsible for identifying the source of funding or how a proposal would offset cuts in the budget. The city manager would become responsible for providing fiscal notes that explain impact on revenues or expenditures, cost estimates and how city staff calculated those estimates.

Mayor Mike Coffman was also a strong supporter of the plan and had offered to help Coombs in drafting the new rules. On Monday, he said it was unprofessional of councilmembers to ignore fiscal notes.

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Mayor Pro Tem Francoise Bergan said she does not believe any councilmember has intended to deceive the public about city budgeting but supported requiring fiscal notes moving forward. Councilmember Dustin Zvonek also supported the resolution but asked what a reasonable length of time might be to prepare the fiscal notes.

“What I don’t want to see happen is this used in a way to slow things down,” he said.

City Manager Jim Twombly said staff will likely need a minimum of seven days to do a cost analysis. Bergan said she feels the time it takes to draft an ordinance and have it vetted by the legal department is also ample time for staff to prepare a fiscal note.

Coffman said councilmembers should know not to pressure staff about a proposal’s fiscal notes too quickly, unless it is a true emergency item.

“If there is an emergency, the staff is going to move,” he said. “If it’s a non-emergency issue, then I think that member is just going to have to wait a reasonable time.”

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