City Manager Tom told the Rawlins City Council that the city's voter-approved "6p" (fifth-penny) capital fund is collecting roughly $1,300,000 a year but is insufficient to cover the inflation-hit cost of the ballot's listed projects. "We collect in there roughly about 1,300,000 a year...we did not bond, so over time inflation has gone up," Tom said.

Tom said the original 6p ballot listed about $12,110,000 of projects but that rising construction costs mean the city cannot complete all items. He cited the Edinburgh Street replacement as an example: an original estimate near $2,300,000 has been updated to an estimated cost that is "upwards of $7,000,000, if not even higher than that."

Council's approach: Tom explained that the city did not issue bonds to finance the work when the 6p tax was approved; bonding would have front-loaded funds but created interest costs and other constraints. He also noted logistical limits: contracting and traffic impacts make doing many large projects at once unrealistic. For now Rawlins plans staged spending as funds accrue and will consider limited transfers or loans from other funds where permitted.

Ending: Tom said the 6p fund balance was about $5,200,000 as of Dec. 31 and that the council's strategy at budget time was to collect one more year of tax revenue and use a portion of the impact-assistance fund to advance work while delaying lower-priority items.