City seeks ideas on next year’s budget

Spokane City Council members are asking residents to provide advice on their efforts to write a 2007 budget in a survey being mailed out in city utility bills this month.

But unlike the past two budget years when the council faced widespread staffing cuts and higher taxes, next year’s city budget is expected to be largely a continuation of funding levels from 2006.

Mayor Dennis Hession has recommended utility rate increases of 3 percent for water and garbage service and 3.5 percent for sewers, and the gambling tax collected from city casinos is expected to drop by $600,000 in a phased reduction to help those businesses compete with other casinos in the area.

A favorable economy has brought an 11 percent increase in sales tax collections in 2006, along with higher utility tax revenue stemming largely from energy price increases. Together, they are expected to leave the city with a strong cash carryover at the start of 2007.

Also, the city is in the second year of a two-year special property tax levy, approved by voters last fall to avoid cuts in public safety and other services.

City Council President Joe Shogan said that adoption of the annual budget is one of the most important duties of the council, and council members want to understand what citizens want and expect. The survey, called “Your City Wants to Hear From You,” will reach 72,000 utility customers. Citizens should simply return the completed survey with their monthly payments. Results will be made available in November.

While the mayor and the council begin budget deliberations, a consulting group has been working within City Hall in recent weeks on a $260,000 “efficiency and effectiveness” study that is to become a blueprint for reorganizing the way the city delivers services.

Matrix Consulting Group of Palo Alto, Calif., is expected to help city officials come up with ways to reverse an ongoing trend in which the city’s tax revenues grow more slowly than the demand for wages, benefits and materials.

Budget officials have said the city could face a cash shortfall of $10 million or more in 2008 when the special two-year property tax levy expires.

Council members and the mayor are considering ways to increase collection of non-tax revenues, including one proposal to charge developers for the cost of planning services for growth and development, a function partly financed from general taxes.

Energy conservation, new charges for public safety services, alternatives to jail sentences and new energy contracts for the city’s waste incinerator and Upriver Dam are among other proposals for increasing money coming into the city.