When Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper convened more than 100 civic leaders last year to serve on his Infrastructure Priorities Task Force, he handed them what has turned out to be a very tough assignment. He asked that by January 2007 they sort through masses of data and constituency requests to come up with a new financing package for the city's capital needs. The package would need to draw voter support in addressing both the city's chronic "deferred maintenance" backlog and the need to fund new facilities that respond to Denver's population growth and evolving needs.

According to the task force's finance committee, Denver's deferred maintenance needs alone - excluding new or remodeled buildings, new parks, etc. - would require the full proceeds of a three-mill property tax increase, or about $25 million annually. This would do no more than "catch up" on a backlog the committee estimates at $390 million.

The committee is unequivocal in supporting funding of deferred maintenance rather than addition of new amenities like recreation centers, better transit connections, a new crime lab, etc. The estimated tab for this new tax levy would be $61 a year for the average Denver homeowner, or a 4.5 percent increase in overall property taxes. (Because of Colorado's tax structure, the cost to business property owners would be much higher.)

But the larger task force (there are eight other committees), City Council and the mayor face major challenges in selling the new tax. For starters, it compounds the effect of the other new levies Denver voters have recently approved: sales tax increases for preschool programs and for the Regional Transportation District's FasTracks; a property tax increase, also about $25 million per year, for Denver Public Schools merit pay; and an extension of existing taxes for a new justice center.

Now these leaders are faced with promoting a program that might consist primarily of items like $15 million for street signs, $48 million for curb and gutter replacement, and $32 million for new traffic signals.

It seems likely that the full task force, mayor and council will opt to add other more tempting items to the list. To this end, the other committees of the task force have suggested more than $750 million in projects that are more or less outside the deferred maintenance backlog.

Here are some approaches decision-makers might consider while winnowing the list down to a more digestible package:

• Consider more emphasis on financing through charges to facility users in lieu of general taxes.

Some reliance on these mechanisms makes sense for several of the items proposed. For example, the parks and recreation subcommittee included in their draft recommendations more than $40 million for new recreation centers. Fees paid to Denver's current recreation operations cover only a small fraction of their current operating costs and none of their capital construction costs. While raising user fees is politically challenging, now might be a good time to revisit the topic.

There is also ample precedent for asking new homeowners to share the costs of new park facilities. Nine million dollars is the draft recommendation for Parkfield Lake Park in rapidly growing northeast Denver. Denver's most recent large park addition, Commons Park in the Central Platte Valley, was funded in part by a special tax district assessment on local residents in the new developments surrounding the park.

In addition, generous grant funding from Great Outdoors Colorado, which Denver has been relatively unsuccessful in attracting recently, played a large role in Commons Park funding.

• Consider more contemporary models of service.

The draft recommendations suggest more than $8 million in improvements at two dozen recreation centers and swimming pools run by the city, in addition to more than $40 million in construction of new centers. Most of the renovation dollars, as in past bond issues, would go to aging centers funded in the federal Model Cities program of the 1960s and '70s, which emphasized small, neighborhood-based centers.

More contemporary recreation programs, like those in Denver's neighbors Westminster and Thornton, feature much larger and more centralized facilities offering multiple swimming pools, child care, user-friendly hours and other amenities far beyond Denver's - and charging users accordingly. Further, the YMCA has been eager to share in financing and delivery of recreation services at sites like Stapleton, where the committee has proposed a $10 million tax-funded investment. City staff have resisted sharing operating responsibility with the nonprofit.

• Consider broader regional approaches to facility needs.

The Public Safety committee recommended $45 million for a new police crime lab. While the committee considered regional approaches to public safety training needs, no discussion of sharing the new crime technology facility with other cities or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is offered in the report.

Maintenance of most of Denver's mountain parks has been politely ignored for years, and it is encouraging to see even the relatively modest investment proposed by the task force for their capital maintenance. However, most of the parks' users and neighbors are residents of other metro counties. It is disappointing that no progress seems to have been made in adopting a regional approach to managing and funding these assets. In the past, managers of Jefferson County Open Space have stated they would welcome such discussions.

• Ensure that existing infrastructure is being properly managed before committing to investments that might not be properly maintained.

A 2002 consultant's study that formed the basis for the committee's $16 million park irrigation system replacement proposal also included a dozen operational recommendations to significantly improve water conservation in the parks. Many of these steps are relatively simple and inexpensive. Four years later, this plan had not been implemented.

• Reconsider funding priorities in light of recent severe damage to Denver's streets.

Pothole-filled streets battered by holiday storms and subsequent freezes should assume a much higher priority than could have been foreseen in the task force's deliberations. Most of these discussions took place last year or were based on earlier planning. The finance committee's deferred maintenance recommendations include only $30 million for catching up on paving projects - probably not enough to do much more than the handful of projects included in the 1989 bond issue, when the city's pavement was in much better shape.

Denver does need to better care for many of its existing assets, and Denver property taxes are relatively modest. However, until issues like those raised here are addressed, it is unlikely that the task force, mayor and City Council will have all the information they need to present the best possible investment recommendations to Denver voters.

A costly mess

Catching up on the estimated $390 million backlog in deferred maintenance in Denver would, according to the finance committee of the Infrastructure Priorities Task Force, require the full proceeds of a three-mill property tax increase that would cost the average homeowner $61 a year. And repairing streets ravaged by recent storms, right, should probably take on a higher priority, the author of this article suggests.

Andrew Wallach managed Denver's 1989 bond issue for Mayor Federico Peña, the 1998 neighborhood bond issue for Mayor Wellington Webb and also served Mayor John Hickenlooper for three years.

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