Serving The Public Requires Conscience

Initiative 695, promoted as tax relief for the little guy, is going to kick the little guy in the shins. For example:

The city of Spokane must lay off police officers and firefighters and reduce library hours.

Spokane Transit Authority must cut bus routes and lay off drivers.

The Spokane Regional Health District is debating whether to lay off public health nurses.

Major highway projects have been canceled, all over the state.

Why? Lower taxes mean less to spend. Effects will be lightest on middle- and upper-class people who reside in safe neighborhoods and gained a noticeable tax break from I-695. It’s lower-income folks - and there are many in Spokane - who rely on public libraries because they can’t afford to purchase books. Who need public health nurses because they lack health insurance. Who live in neighborhoods where crime and fires strike more often. Who rely on public transit out of necessity, because they lack reliable cars or can’t drive due to age or disability.

To what extent can service cuts be avoided?

The outlook isn’t good. Nevertheless, agency administrators have a duty to cushion the blow to the most vulnerable members of our communities. If they don’t, they risk something more valuable than revenue: their credibility.

Spokane’s debate over public health nurses has brought to light a principle that ought to guide all of the budget-cutting: Cut administrative costs more deeply than front-line services.

More than some agencies, the health district has room to implement that principle. Between 1995 and 1999, spending on community service such as nurses grew 33 percent while spending on administration grew 58 percent. Yet, district director Kim Thorburn proposed to cut nurses and hire a public relations officer - who’d promote what, exactly? Image hinges on service, not PR.

But it is administrators, not front-line service providers, who plan cuts. Administrators should put the public interest ahead of their own. If they don’t, they’ll get no sympathy when legislators try to replace the lost revenue.

Spokane Transit offers a decent model. Initiative 695 killed 40 percent of STA’s revenue. The agency expects to use its reserves to cushion the blow and plans an appropriately broad array of cuts, but a loss of this magnitude will force service cuts, too.

The city of Spokane will lose $3.6 million in revenue next year. Half its budget goes to police and fire departments. If police and fire escape cuts, the city will have to butcher smaller departments such as parks and libraries, and that is unconscionable. So, somehow it has to lay off uniformed people - while keeping basic emergency response capability.

Some hold out hope for aid from the Legislature. But that can’t arrive, if it does, until late next year. Meanwhile, balanced budgets must be adopted and implemented by Jan. 1. That makes it necessary to implement cuts, knowing that people - employees and those they serve - will be hurt.

Could tax increases tide agencies over until aid arrives from Olympia? Given the heated message voters just sent about taxes, that would be difficult to defend.

All agencies can do is cut overhead, then cut services, protecting basics if possible. Those that do will come to the table with credibility when legislators begin to rearrange the state’s appropriations.