Residents of Spokane to pay more for utilities

Spokane residents are going to pay more for water, sewer and garbage service in the new year.

The Spokane City Council on Monday voted 5-2 to raise its tax on city-operated utilities and in separate, unanimous votes raised the monthly utility rates.

It is the third element in a three-part plan to maintain current funding levels for police, fire, library and other tax-supported services in 2006.

Voters last month approved a modest increase in the regular property tax collection for the next two years, and employee bargaining groups are considering concessions in wages and benefits to help cover a projected $6.5 million shortfall in the $127 million general fund budget.

An average residential bill would go from $68.48 a month to $73.32 a month based on moderate water use and a midsize garbage container.

Residents who use minimal amounts of water would see smaller increases in their bills. Customers outside the city will see rate increases as well.

The higher rates include a $3-a-month increase in the sewer department’s charge for advance funding of as much as $500 million worth of wastewater system improvements through 2017.

That so-called “rate stabilization fund” will increase from $7 a month to $10 a month next year and then to $13 a month in 2007.

It is being collected to eliminate the need for borrowing construction money on the municipal bond market, a plan that will save ratepayers millions of dollars of long-term interest charges.

Improvements include four new sewage “digesters,” a series of underground storage tanks, ultraviolet disinfection and high-tech filtration of effluent.

The tax to support general services – which the council levies against its three utilities – will go from 17 percent to 20 percent for each of the next two years.

That increase will not initially be passed on to customers in the form of higher utility rates.

Managers said they have sufficient operating reserves to pay the tax for one year without passing the cost on to customers.

Rates would likely be increased in 2007 to cover the higher tax, they said.

Council President Dennis Hession was joined by council members Joe Shogan, Brad Stark, Al French and Mary Verner in approving the higher utility tax.

Council members Cherie Rodgers and Bob Apple voted no.

The tax increase passed with no comment from the public or council members.

“Quiet crowd,” Hession said as he called for the vote.

The increases in utility and property taxes were included in a plan by Mayor Jim West to avoid cuts in police and fire protection, and to restore limited five-day-a-week service at the city’s five neighborhood branch libraries, following deep budget cuts dating back to September 2004.

Rodgers said she objected to a vote last week to lower the city’s tax on card rooms from 20 percent to 15 percent in 2006 and then to 10 percent in 2007 because the lowered gambling tax would benefit a small group of business owners and employees at the expense of the wider populace.

“They want the other 197,000 people to pay more,” Rodgers said in an interview after the vote.

Rodgers said she would instead cut city subsidies to business and economic development organizations, trim several jobs in the mayor’s office and eliminate an assistant fire chief and economic development adviser.

Her list of $1 million in cuts also would eliminate a $45,000 a year contract for lobbying services in Olympia.

Adoption of the 2006 city budget could come as early as Monday.

Hession said council members will huddle in a study session later this week to consider restoring proposed cuts in human services allocations.

The mayor’s budget sought reduced allocations to nonprofit charities and organizations of $300,000, from $900,000 this year to $600,000 in 2006.

The agencies that receive the grants submitted nearly $2 million in funding requests for programs such as feeding the hungry, helping pregnant teens and delivering health services to the elderly.