What Would You Do? Here’s Your Chance To Be Budget Director For A Day. Just Fill Out This Worksheet And Let The Powers That Be At City Hall Know How You Would Spend You Money

Sharpen your pencil.

You have an opportunity to take a survey of hard choices. The hard choices involve where the city of Spokane should spend its money in 1996 and 1997.

The city expects to fall $5 million short of being able to fund its current level of services next year and the year after. Put another way, either $5 million will have to come out of the city’s budget or $5 million more in taxes will be needed to keep services going the way they are today.

Rather than simply leave it to the City Council and city management to make the cuts or raise the taxes, Spokane residents and taxpayers have another option.

You be the budget director for a day. The City Council has organized a citizens group known as Spokane Partners. These citizens, in turn, have worked with a consultant to develop a budget questionnaire that gives taxpayers and everyday folk a chance to offer their ideas on where the city’s money and effort should be spent.

Where would you cut? Would you raise taxes? Are there things you would rather the city quit doing and are there some things you would like the city to begin?

For example, if you would like your street paved, add another $6 million to cover all the streets in the city now need of new asphalt.

We have agreed, on this Perspective page, to work with the Spokane Partners citizens group to increase public involvement in the budgeting for the next two years.

On this page you will see a questionnaire called Your Tax Dollar. With it is a chart showing where the city of Spokane currently spends its $109 million budget. And you will see a chart that shows where the top five city departments spend their money.

You are invited to get out the pencil and make the hard choices of where you think the city of Spokane’s money should be spent next year and the year after.

You have a total of one dollar to spend, or 100 cents. The charts show how many cents of each tax dollar go to each city department. Budget numbers on the questionnaire have been rounded for illustrative purposes. If you wish more complete information on the budget, copies are available at the Spokane Public Library.

Your task is simply to fill out the questionnaire with your priorities. Remember you have only 100 cents. And in the end you will need to either cut your tax dollar to 95 cents to account for the shortfall, or note that you are suggesting higher taxes to cover your plan.

That’s it.

To start out you might want to reflect on what you consider to be the most important city services, and what the city does best. Then, consider what you think are the least effective services and what the city doesn’t do well. Are there services you would add? Take away?

You will notice right away that such simple answers such as cutting out the arts and cutting back affirmative action won’t do much. These services amount to not quite one-half a cent of your tax dollar. And, police and fire already receive more than 50 cents of every tax dollar.

These are tough choices. But they are real.

Rather than simply have people sit back and criticize the way Spokane spends its money and allocates its resources, this is your chance to put in your two cents worth on where the money and effort should go.

Once you have completed your budget, mail it to Your Tax Dollar, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA. 99210-1615.

We will forward the budgets to the Community Partners. They will make sure they get to the hands of the city management.

No one said being a good citizen was easy.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Graphics: Cutting Spokane’s Budget

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Our current city budget The 1995 City of Spokane General Government Budget is $109 million. Listed here is each department, with the amount it will be able to spend this year. All numbers are in millions Police Department $28.20 Fire Department $22.52 Transportation Department $11.55 Parks and Recreation $10.69 Library $6.71 Construction Services $6.31 Nondepartmental $4.74 Entertainment Facilities $3.17 Municipal Court $2.50 Planning Services $1.49 Legal-Civil $1.28 Planning and Engineering Services $1.02 Community Development $.73 Public Defender $.64 City Hall Maintenance $.61 Community Centers $.61 Personnel $.61 Treasurer $.59 Accounting $.57 Legal-Prosecutor $.55 Civil Service $.48 Human Services $.55 Mayor/Council $.42 Finance - Taxes and Licenses $.40 City Manager’s Office $.35 City Clerk $.35 Affirmative Action/Civil Rights $.23 Finance and Internal Audit $.23 Management and Budget $.18 Office of Youth $.15 Internation Development $.14 Channel 5 $.14 Hearing Examiner $.13 Arts $.13 Weights and Measurers $.11 Historic Preservation $.09