The buses stop running at 6:15 p.m. now, and most streetlights stay dark throughout the night. Three city pools have shut down, and turf is withering in more than 100 parks.

What’s a city to do when its museums are struggling to stay open and there aren’t enough police officers to investigate crimes?

Colorado Springs residents have met their city’s attempts to get by with less on their own terms. For some, there is anger and lost jobs. For others, there are weary shrugs and mild complaints.

And for some, there is a realization that if they want things done, they’ll just have to do it themselves.

So a local swim club has taken over some of the pools. Volunteers pick up trash in parks. Some — meaning those who can afford it — pay extra to turn on the streetlights in front of their own houses.

The Springs, as locals call it, is a city in transition, a grand experiment in what might happen if a government really does hold the line on taxes — as some citizens demand — and starts curtailing services. No one knows what will result as government shrinks and citizens take up the slack.

Will wealthy neighborhoods thrive, while poor areas decline further? Will crime rise as cops go missing? Will charity transform Colorado Springs into a libertarian paradise?

Or will it be a colossal flop?

Whatever happens, it will be the clear and mindful choice of the people.

Just seven months ago, municipal officials laid out details of a desperate financial situation. Revenues were down about $16 million. That amount, and enough to cover $8 million more in rising pension and health care costs, had to be whacked from the 2010 budget. It was the second year in a row of major shortfalls.

There was a solution, though: The city asked voters to approve a tax that would pay for routine services.

But voters said no.

So now, as promised, services many took for granted are vanishing.

Things are not desperate — yet. Private organizations have contributed money to keep fountains running. A church runs a community center. One anonymous woman sent in $37,000 to keep Nancy Lewis Park green and clean.

What is happening in the city “is more than the city budget,” said Stephannie Finley of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce “The city is not city hall; the city is the people. It’s about stepping up during a recovery time.”

The donations help, but they are temporary. The Springs- based U.S. Olympic Committee, for example, ponied up $125,000 to cover youth-recreation programs that kept community centers open.

Looking ahead, though, “there is no sustainable funding beyond this calendar year,” said city spokeswoman Sue Skiffington-Blumberg.

Life with the cutbacks

At Village Green Park, just off Carefree Circle on the city’s east side, weeds flourish, and stenciled onto a bathroom door: “Restrooms Closed Due to Budget Restrictions.”

“If you have kids who are potty trained, that’s a problem,” said Rachel Barker, 33, playing at the swings with her toddler. “There’s probably a lot of kids peeing in the weeds.”

Of the city’s 149 parks, only 15 are being carefully maintained by the city, and most of them are revenue-producing sports fields.

“I came from Minnesota — from the overtaxed to the undertaxed,” said Gary Kulbitski, 43, playing with his kids at the Julie Penrose Fountain, a sculptural wading pool that no longer receives city money. A nonprofit has kept it flowing.

“I’m a conservative, but I think shutting down parks and stuff is a mistake,” he said. “I don’t think people understood their kids wouldn’t be able to go swimming.”

The same park drew Nicole Lippard, 36, her husband, Chris, 37, and their three kids. The donations toward keeping the fountain and other services going are “extremely generous,” said Nicole, but not enough.

“It’s not a guarantee,” she said. “Right now we are living on generosity.”

To pretend the cuts are simply an inconvenience is to overlook deeper problems. For example, when officials axed evening and weekend bus service in the city of 400,000 this year, it meant real economic hardship.

“I was working up north in a little diner, and I had to quit because of the bus,” said Joseph Williams, 18, while waiting for a Mountain Metro last week.

Added fellow passenger Rashad Lindon, 20: “There are times I have to work late, and I have to put $20 in people’s gas tanks to get around. It’s a pain — from having to pay $1.75, to paying $35 for a taxi, or getting somebody to pick me up.”

Next, safety may become a concern. The city fire department is down 20 firefighters this year; the police department has 42 fewer cops on the streets. For both fire and police, there are no classes of recruits in training, which is unusual.

“In the last year and a half, we went from being a proactive, problem-solving to a reactive police department, to where we only go when we are called,” said Pete Tomitsch, president of the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association.

“There is a lot of frustration within the department. There is a whole slew of calls we don’t respond to that a year and a half ago we did.”

If thieves break into a car or home and steal stuff — a felony — the report is usually taken over the phone now.

“Our property-crime detectives have been cut by over half,” he said. “When people call the police, they want somebody to show up on their doorstep, and we can’t do that.”

Stage set for crisis

Municipal budgets are in rough shape in cities across the state. Why are things especially difficult in Colorado Springs?

City financial services manager Kara Skinner speculated that the problem, ultimately, hinges on the people of the city shutting their wallets during the economic downturn. They stopped buying things, and revenues from sales taxes, which constitute half of the city budget, declined dramatically between 2007 and 2009. During one 21-month period, 19 months hauled in less than the previous year.

“This may have been the result of a more conservative response by the citizens in our city to more drastically rein in spending in the face of a severe, prolonged recession,” Skinner said.

But there is more here than the people of Colorado Springs buckling down during a slump. There is the residents’ difficult relationship with taxation.

In short, they don’t like it and reject it whenever possible, and, as a result, city coffers are relatively lean — even during good times.

For a city of its size, Colorado Springs has an unusually low sales-tax rate — 3.5 percent, compared with Denver’s 4.82 percent or Aurora’s 4.95 percent.

In addition, the city’s property-tax rate sits at 4.279 mills (about 0.4 percent of the house’s assessed value), compared with Denver’s 26.535 mills (2.65 percent) and Aurora’s 10.664 mills (1.66 percent).

“If we had the same level of sales and property tax as Denver, it would generate about $126 million more” in current annual revenues, Mayor Lionel Rivera said.

Colorado Springs, too, was the birthplace of the TABOR amendment, or the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. In 1991, the year Colorado voters passed TABOR — a provision that restricts government’s ability to tax and spend — Colorado Springs passed its own, citywide TABOR. It is the only municipality in the state that is “double-TABORed.”

The provisions may make it twice as hard for the city to claw its way out of the current crisis, Rivera said. And it may open the door for a government that best serves those who need it least.

That point is illustrated by the thousands of streetlights that sport orange tape. These are the ones the city deactivated in March — 8,800 of them. On a recent evening, a 1-mile stretch of the major eastside thoroughfare, Academy Boulevard, had about 60 streetlights, but only five were lit.

Creating class division?

Not every neighborhood in the city, though, is streetlight- stingy. Nor is every median brown, or each park without trash cans.

So far, about 900 lights have been “adopted” by Colorado Springs residents — a fee was paid, and the light was turned back on.

In some cases, services can be restored through volunteer labor. Residents adopted more than 100 trash cans in parks by agreeing to empty them.

But which parks and which community centers will stay active? That depends on where individuals or groups are willing to step up. And private enterprise means higher fees.

Three public pools formerly run by the city are now operated by Colorado Springs Swim School, a private swim club that agreed to take on a five-year contract. Rates have gone up. Family admission at Wilson Ranch pool, for example, has vaulted from $10.50 to $20.

The swim club’s efforts are surely community-minded.

“We just couldn’t let it happen,” said Tina Dessart, the owner of the swim school. “Our focus has been learn to swim for a long, long time. When pools shut down, drownings increase.”

But the escalating costs for residents, along with other aspects of the budget cutting, are unfair, said City Councilwoman Jan Martin, who grew up in Colorado Springs.

“These medians and parks that are being adopted are in wealthy neighborhoods,” she said. “We are seeing the creation of a community of haves and have nots.”

Even people who have made the best of the bad situation are worried.

Residents of one Springs neighborhood looked at their park — Old Farm park — and concluded it could not die. Allison Foster, 39, started hanging up signs, referring neighborhood residents to a website asking for contributions.

Seventy people offered to roam the park once a week collecting trash and inspecting playground equipment. People began mailing checks to the city, which put aside a separate “gift trust” for the park; the money gets used to pay for, among other things, extra water.

“The best thing is we have all gotten to know each other much better,” Foster said. “We’re going to have a big party at the end of the summer.”

But Foster isn’t celebrating.

She thinks the city — not individuals — should be responsible for the park. “There are a lot of parks that are not adopted, and it’s not equal,” said Foster, who described her neighborhood as middle class.

“A lot of places that need them the most are where they aren’t getting taken care of. That’s the sad part of all of this.”

Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com