Page 198 - Littleton, CO Comprehensive Plan

Fiscal Impact Analysis
The City of Littleton, CO

BACKGROUND

TischlerBise is part of a consultant team headed by Kendig Keast Collaborative (“KKC”) working with
the City of Littleton to develop a Comprehensive Plan for the municipality, the Envision Littleton
Comprehensive Plan. TischlerBise’s role is to identify and analyze fiscal impacts of distinct land use
scenarios in the city. The Fiscal Impact Analysis (“FIA”) presented in this report includes the City of
Littleton’s General Fund activities, all Special Revenue Fund activities, and an analysis of the Capital
Projects Fund.

An FIA determines whether revenues generated by new development are sufficient to cover the costs
resulting from that development—specifically, those costs associated with maintaining current levels
of service given the additional service and facility demands that growth places on a jurisdiction.
Existing levels of service reflect public services and infrastructure as currently funded and are typically
expressed as a cost per demand unit. For example, maintenance of parks would be expressed as a
cost per acre of parks to maintain.

A fiscal impact evaluation is intended to help guide policy decisions regarding land use alternatives,
levels of service, and revenue enhancements. It should not be viewed as a budget-forecasting
document. Unlike the annual budget process where a budget is balanced with the resources available,
a fiscal analysis looks at revenues and expenditures separately. An FIA shows direct revenues and costs
from new development only and does not include revenues or costs generated from existing
development. Development scenarios are represented by numerical projections of population,
housing units, employment, and nonresidential building area.

TischlerBise received three land use scenarios from KKC which were developed in coordination with
City of Littleton staff. The scenarios represent several “what if” situations, with varying levels of
residential and nonresidential development occurring over the course of the 20-year planning period.

Once scenarios have been identified, the next major step in the analysis process is to determine
current service levels and capacities and associated revenues and costs. For the purposes of this FIA,
we identified current levels of service and capacities through on-site interviews and follow-up
discussions with City staff, collaboration with the other members of the consulting team, an analysis
of the City of Littleton’s Fiscal Year 2019 (“FY2019”) Budget; the 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial
Report; the Littleton Museum Strategic Plan; the Parks, Recreation, and Trail Master Plan; the 2019
Facilities Assessment; the 2017 Littleton Housing Study; and other relevant documents. Using the
results of this level of service/capacity analysis, we developed a fiscal impact model customized for
the City of Littleton. We then utilized this model to evaluate the fiscal impact of the three distinct
land use scenarios provided by KKC.

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