City Taxpayers Getting A Bargain

When Spokane voters rejected a bond issue that would have rebuilt their crumbling arterials, the decision did keep down property taxes. But it didn’t end the city’s duty to keep up the streets.

So what are city administrators doing, proposing a 3-cent increase in property tax rates, to cover street maintenance?

They are doing their job.

Meanwhile it’s the job of the public, and its representatives on the City Council, to ask hard questions about the budget city administrators drafted for 1997. Do expenditures and priorities match? Is the city wringing more efficiency from its operations? Is it striving to boost the local tax base so economic growth, rather than heavier tax loads, will feed the treasury?

Decide for yourself:

Acting City Manager Bill Pupo proposes to spend $112 million next year. This year the city will spend $109.6 million. The biggest items are: Police, $28 million; fire, $22 million; roads, $12 million; parks, $11 million; libraries, $7 million. Of the increase, $2 million is to comply with an unfunded mandate by the state Legislature. The state ordered the city to take over prosecution of misdemeanor crimes, a job now done by the county. The county gets to keep the money it spent on the chore, and the city has to scramble to cover the tab.

City officials this year reformed policies that govern the jailing of crime suspects when police ticket them. The city saves $750,000 by jailing only dangerous suspects, and by putting more of them in low-cost cells at Geiger instead of the city-county jail.

City task forces are looking into ideas that could save money over the long haul: Civil Service reform. Outsourcing computer services to a private contractor. Selling Upriver Dam to a utility with expertise in the hydropower business.

The city is working aggressively to encourage renovation of the downtown commercial district, a huge piece of the tax base whose health can make or break city revenues as well as affecting urban crime. The healthier the commercial sector is, the lighter the property tax load will be on homeowners.

Pupo recommends the city not accept a federal grant to hire more police officers. With reason: The grant covers a fraction of the cost and disappears in three years.

Instead, Pupo recommends that next year’s budget enhancements go to street maintenance. As state law allows, he proposes to bump the city property tax rate, from this year’s $3.02 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, to $3.05 next year. That would add $3 per year for a $100,000 home. It would pay for more sealing of the cracked roads voters didn’t want to rebuild. It barely qualifies as a Band-aid, but it’s progress.

Is this a picture of wild spending? Consider one last fact: Spokane’s city government costs $508 per resident. Tacoma’s costs $671.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board