City budget quickly under fire

Just one day after Spokane Mayor Jim West submitted his 2005 city budget proposal, members of the Spokane City Council began taking shots at it.

The proposal calls for eliminating 63 firefighters, 17 police officers, two misdemeanor prosecutors and 60 other city workers to save $12 million from the $118 million general fund. Growth in tax revenue is not expected to keep pace with higher costs for labor, health care and jail bills, officials said

West appeared before a Wednesday study session of the council and heard almost immediate criticism.

Councilwoman Mary Verner wanted to know why the mayor was creating a new position of economic development director at the same time he is cutting neighborhood planning and the city’s equity office for equal employment opportunities and human rights.

“I don’t know if we need a new economic development director in these hard times,” Verner told the mayor just before the council adjourned the afternoon meeting.

West responded that he would explain his reasoning in detail later, but that he is consolidating the equity office with human resources and eliminating positions devoted to human resources in the police and fire departments.

West said that economic development is one way the city can increase tax revenue and climb out of its ongoing budget problems.

Verner also criticized the mayor’s move last summer to transfer staff from neighborhood planning in order to build a new economic development department. “We need these (neighborhood) plans to guide economic development,” she said.

Neighborhoods across the city had been in the middle of efforts to write new land-use plans to guide new development or redevelopment when West won approval to transfer some of the planning staff that was overseeing the work.

Council President Dennis Hession said he and other council members want to hear more about the thought processes that went into proposing the staffing reductions. “What were you thinking when you came up with this budget?” Hession asked.

Councilman Brad Stark asked, “What are the options in terms of (budget) adjustments?”

The city currently has six prosecutors handling between 10,000 and 12,000 misdemeanor cases each year. Those numbers don’t include domestic violence cases and the three prosecutors hired with federal grant money to handle them. Jim Bledsoe, one of the city’s prosecutors, said in an interview that the loss of two attorneys in the office could mean dismissals of some of those misdemeanor cases.

“If we lose even one prosecutor, we can’t keep up,” Bledsoe said following the council meeting.

The budget now goes before the council during its regular legislative session on Monday when West and his staff are expected to appear to explain the cuts and the options available to the council. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers and will be televised on Cable Channel 5.

After that, the council will take public testimony during each of its next four Monday night meetings.

During Wednesday’s meeting, West said he is asking for a small increase in the city’s regular property tax levy, which would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $12 next year, if approved by the council. That is the maximum allowed without a public vote.

The mayor said he and other officials at City Hall have talked about asking voters to approve a special property tax levy for public safety, but it would not provide money for 2005 because November is the deadline for setting the property tax amount for next year.

He also said talks with employees about reducing the city’s health insurance costs may not produce any savings until 2006, and talks with county judges over reducing jail costs with electronic home monitoring have failed to make gains.