Reduced Cda Budget Goes On View Tonight Proposal Calls For 4 Percent Raises, Spending $1.5 Million Less Than Last Year

It calls for spending $1.5 million less than last year and includes two fewer employees and a 4 percent raise for city employees.

The proposed 1997 budget for the city of Coeur d’Alene will receive its first public airing today at the City Council meeting.

Much of the reduction in the $32 million budget is due to the fact that the city has finished paying a $2.8 million judgment which resulted from a lawsuit over construction of the new sewage treatment plant.

The city also is saving about $90,000 by not filling vacancies in public works and in administration.

Other proposed cuts are likely to draw more attention.

They include no longer giving Kootenai County a 20 percent cut of Municipal Court fines.

The preliminary budget also suggests ending the city’s contract with the Kootenai County Humane Society for animal control, which would save nearly $47,000.

That would leave the county solely responsible for dogcatcher duty.

The budget also calls for eliminating city spending on the DARE program, a drug and alcohol aversion program aimed at schoolchildren, for a savings of $44,000.

And it calls for ending the city’s $10,000 donation to Jobs Plus, an economic development group that is supposed to recruit businesses.

The most significant spending increases for individual departments come as a result of a 4 percent salary increase that was negotiated in 1995.

That increase, plus salary increases that come with longevity, will cost about $407,000.

The city also is earmarking $45,000 to buy property for a third fire station.

If the City Council decides to spend $217,000 in new property tax revenue, the money could go for a loader to remove snow in Coeur d’Alene’s growing number of cul-de-sacs.

The optional spending list also includes money for two snowplows, another street department mechanic, matching funds for extrication equipment for use at automobile accidents and more land acquisition for the parks department to store equipment.

Three council workshops are proposed in August to give citizens a chance to comment on the budget.

They tentatively are set for Aug. 21, 22 and 27.

In other business tonight, the council is expected to approve an annexation agreement for Blackwell Island.

The controversial development would extend city water and sewers south of the Spokane River for the first time. Critics fear it would mean an explosion of development.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: CdA’s proposed 1996-96 budget

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING The City Council will meet tonight at 7 in City Hall.