The Spokane City Council this week did as expected and approved $2.5 million worth of budget cuts. Also as expected, advocates for programs that took hard hits were on hand to protest.

Not all activities of city government are prone to that kind of midyear budget disruptions, however. On Sept. 14, Spokane voters will have a chance to make their own decision on a vital city program.

The city is asking voters to renew the property tax levy that pays for emergency medical services. If surveys and past election experience mean anything, there’s little reason to doubt public support for the tiered response system in which paramedics are dispatched to medical emergencies.

Surveys in 1997 and 2002 showed emergency medical services ranked second in importance only to Fire Department services in general in the minds of citizens. Voters have dutifully approved the special property tax levy every six years starting in 1980.

Still, city officials – and city residents who like the comfort of knowing emergency medical assistance is only minutes away – have cause for some anxiety this time.

Special property tax levies have a double hurdle to clear at the polls. The turnout has to be at least 40 percent of that in the last general election and the approval rate must be 60 percent or greater.

This year the 40 percent turnout could be a problem if a substantial number of voters express their anger over the state’s new primary election system by staying home. The law does allow such measures to pass with less than a 40 percent turnout – if the “yes” vote equals 60 percent of what would have been a valid turnout.

The EMS levy passed in 1998, despite a dismal turnout, by getting a 77 percent approval rate, but it expires at the end of this year.

Let’s not count on another 3-to-1 margin in 2004. Better just to vote.

The levy authorizes a tax at up to 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation — $50 on a $100,000 house. That’s what was approved in 1998 and 1992. That would raise $4.8 million a year for the next six years. If the levy fails, serious cuts can be expected in the life-saving services that now arrive, on average, less than six minutes after a 911 call is received.

Anyone who’s placed a 911 call can identify with the sense of comfort that comes with knowing help is on the way. The prospect of losing that kind of reassurance — especially over a grudge about the election system — is unnerving.

We can spare ourselves the problem by voting to approve the EMS levy on Sept. 14.