Cheney Still Facing Budget Cuts

Cheney city leaders are still suffering a budget hangover.

The mayor and council are wrestling with ways to come up with $150,000 in cuts for the city’s 1998 spending plan because of a drop in revenue from the utility tax on electrical bills.

Mayor Amy Jo Sooy and City Administrator Jim Reinbold were said to be in a meeting Wednesday hashing out options.

The City Council met on Tuesday but took no action on the budget. It was Sooy’s first council meeting as mayor.

Last month, the council backed off on a tax proposal that would have raised utility taxes on sewer, water and garbage service to close the budget gap.

Citizens submitted a petition with 680 signatures opposing those increases, leaving the city with a $150,000 shortfall in expected revenue.

The problem traces back to a ruling by the state auditor last year that Cheney was illegally collecting a 12 percent tax on bills from the city-owned electrical utility. The state limits the tax to 6 percent.

The loss of revenue from that tax will be $300,000 in 1998. The council last fall trimmed about $150,000 from the budget for 1998 but tried to blunt the cuts by shifting some of the tax loss to the other city utility services.

Now that the council has backed off those increases, the city is facing another round of cuts.

Reinbold has recommended a series of spending reductions in each department to avoid layoffs.

Under his plan, the fire department’s ladder truck would be parked. Summer watering in city parks would be curtailed. Funding for equipment reserves would be held back for a year. Mosquito control would cease, among other cuts.

Sooy has said she has not ruled out the possibility of layoffs.

, DataTimes