Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson's hopes of setting up a fund that will yearly spur energy-efficiency projects appears on its way to approval, albeit only partial approval.

The Salt Lake City Council on Tuesday, through a series of straw polls, backed partial funding for the mayor's Energy Fund for the Future.

As Anderson proposed the fund in his recommended budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year, it would annually collect 1 percent of the general fund's revenues — nearly $1.9 million this year — for an array of uses, from investing in alternative energy sources and more efficient infrastructure on city property to loans for pro-efficiency upgrades in homes and businesses.

The fund would be overseen by a new "sustainability" director, a position that the mayor has also recommended creating in his budget. The sustainability director would make $115,000 a year, and in addition to overseeing the fund he or she would handle a number of other environmental functions, including managing the existing environmental-program manager and the Sustainability Committee.

Council members on Tuesday wondered whether the new position was necessary. Councilwoman Nancy Saxton said she needed more clarification on how the sustainability director's duties would or would not overlap with the jobs of such employees as the mayor's environmental adviser.

Councilman Carlton Christensen, however, said he saw the benefit of the new position and recommended funding the position but waiting to do so until Jan. 15. That would save about $62,000 over the cost of hiring someone immediately. Straw polling showed the council supportive of that idea.

Later, the council informally voted, through another straw poll, to fund the Energy Fund for the Future at about half the mayor's requested amount, granting it $500,000 to go into effect when the sustainability director is hired.

That way, the council has another six months to set specific criteria and goals for the fund before it is created, said Councilman Soren Simonsen, who proposed the partial funding.

The council is in the middle of its budget discussions and has not formally approved any element of the budget yet. The outcome of these discussions and straw polls is being worked into a new budget document, which the council will vote to approve or reject later this month.

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