AURORA | As a local sign that the region has climbed out of the country’s long recession, Aurora city government is beginning to grow and spend more money.

For the second year in a row, Aurora’s proposed 2015 budget won’t include any cuts to services or programs. To keep up with Colorado’s third-largest city, the city aims to hire more city staff, including police and firefighters, and add to recreation services.

At a city council meeting Sept. 8 residents urged council to approve a $9 million plan to expand  Moorhead Recreation Center in northwest Aurora as part of the 2015 budget. The majority of that money would come from $6.8 million from Conservation Trust Fund lottery dollars rolled into the $1 million in seed money allotted by council to Moorhead as part of last year’s budget. 

“Moorhead to me means a place to go  during the summer when my parents are at work. I get to do what I love, play sports,” said Davion Henderson, an Aurora fourth grader who participated in basketball tournaments at the recreation center over the summer. “Moorhead just needs to be bigger. A full-court gym means a place kids my size can play year-round when teenagers and grownups hog the other courts.” 

Henderson was one of the 30 residents who showed up at the city council meeting to support expanding the decades-old northwest Aurora rec center from 5,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet.

The 2015 proposed budget for the general fund is $291 million, up 7.9 percent from 2013 budget of $269.8 million. The budget is higher partly because this year, like last year, auto sales taxes increased.

For 2015, the city council is focusing on 13 projects that total $14 million dollars. Those projects include $419,000 toward a Sister Cities program, extending East 6th Avenue to E-470 for $5.7 million, and creating transit-oriented development around the nine light rail stops planned for Aurora at a cost of $2.4 million.

The budget also includes a 3.75 percent average pay increase for city employees at a cost of $6.4 million, and new full-time employees for police, fire, and parks departments. Last year, city staff saw a 1.5 percent pay increase that cost $2.3 million.

The city plans to hire the most new employees in the police department, with seven new police officers at $723,300 and six civilian employees at $784,100.

It plans to hire five full-time employees for two new fire medical service units at $600,000,  and  four additional firefighters at a cost of $268,500. Parks, Recreation, and Open Space will add five new employees for a cost $325,000.