Taxes going up, layoffs avoided

Jim West’s last city budget as mayor of Spokane didn’t win enthusiastic approval.

In a late-night vote Monday, council members approved a 2006 budget by a narrow 4-3 vote. It came less than a week after West was recalled by 65 percent of voters.

“The mayor did not have an overwhelming mandate about his budget,” Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said Tuesday.

The budget includes increased property and city utility taxes, but it averts the possibility of layoffs in the police and fire departments. It adds a modest improvement in library services. The city’s five neighborhood branches will be open five days a week, although three of the branches will be open only half-days.

A year ago, nearly 150 jobs were cut in police, fire, library and other tax-funded services. The five branch libraries were reduced to two- and three-day-a-week schedules.

Rodgers was joined by council members Bob Apple and Mary Verner in voting against the 2006 spending plan of $126 million for tax-funded services and an additional $350 million for utilities and capital spending.

Verner criticized cuts of more than $300,000 in city grants to human services agencies to help the poor, seniors, youth, disabled and uninsured with health-care needs. “What we’ve done is robbed human services to balance this budget,” she said. “Human services desperately needs that money.”

The budget leaves the city’s Human Services Advisory Board in the position of deciding which of dozens of agencies will be forced to go without city financial assistance next year. About $700,000 is budgeted for the grant program, down from more than $1 million in 2005.

West in the past has questioned the value of city support for human services agencies that are not part of city government.

Verner and Rodgers both had called for a freeze in the wages of top city executives. Verner also called for cuts in auto allowances, educational support, memberships and dues.

Rodgers and Apple said other issues showed flaws in West’s approach to the city’s financial affairs.

Their complaints included higher general taxes, a lowered gambling tax, higher salaries for employees and less money for nonprofit agencies.

“The fact of the matter is I think this is a horrible budget,” Apple said, describing it as the work of an administration that ends on Thursday. “No one has the initiative or the desire to do it right,” he said.

Council President Dennis Hession was joined by council members Joe Shogan, Brad Stark and Al French in adopting the budget in what was literally an 11th-hour vote at 11:25 p.m. Last week, Hession said he did not want to make substantial changes in the mayor’s spending, particularly if requested employee budget concessions did not materialize.

He said he wanted any unexpected sales tax revenue to go for human services grants next year. “I feel badly about this budget because it doesn’t give enough money to human services,” he said.

Hession is expected to become acting mayor on Friday, when the county auditor certifies results of last week’s recall.

Rodgers said on Tuesday that council members are prepared to vote Monday to appoint Hession as mayor to the remaining two years of West’s term. Both Hession and West were elected in 2003.

But the council may first vote on a replacement for Hession as council president.

Council members Shogan and French have offered themselves as candidates. Shogan is council president pro tem and would take the council gavel until the full council appoints a replacement for Hession.

Rodgers said it is possible that Hession could vote on the replacement for the council president before a vote on his expected selection by the council as the city’s next mayor.

Former Councilman Steve Eugster, author of the city’s current strong-mayor charter, said in a memo on Saturday that the charter calls on the council president to perform the duties of the mayor until a replacement is named by the council. That means Hession can still participate in council votes while he acts as mayor, including casting a vote on his own anticipated appointment.

“The council president participates in and votes on the selection of the person to fill a vacancy in the office of mayor. Mayor Hession could certainly vote for himself,” Eugster wrote in the memo, sent by e-mail to West, Hession and council members.

Hession said Tuesday he would decline to vote on his appointment or any other council matter once he becomes acting mayor. He said he views that as a conflict of interest.

“The practical effect of it is very awkward,” Hession said.

West’s departing city budget was crafted from a pair of tax increases as well as a modest number of concessions by two of the city’s seven employee bargaining units.

Local 270 rank-and-file workers agreed to delay salary increases and to increase their medical costs in exchange for a 3 percent salary increase in October 2007.

Local 29 firefighters agreed to work one additional 24-hour shift per year, reducing overtime costs in the fire department, plus some changes in health care packages.

A phaseout of the city’s older self-insurance health care plan will save $120,000 in administrative costs. The outdated plan had dwindled in participation to a single employee at the end of this year, officials said.

The combined value of employee concessions was $585,000, or about $300,000 less than targeted by West in his budget.

A $6.5 million shortfall in the city’s $126 million general tax fund for basic services was closed through voter approval last month of a modest increase in property taxes as well as an increase in the city tax on utilities from 17 percent to 20 percent, approved by the council a week ago.

Rodgers said that the two general tax increases are likely to become permanent even though West had said they would be needed for only two years. The property tax increase would need reauthorization from voters.

Rodgers criticized salary increases for top executive staff; payments for a River Park Square bond bailout; the sale of property adjacent to the Spokane Arena for less than full value; a council vote this fall to reduce the tax on card rooms; and a recent agreement with rank-and-file workers granting them the additional 3 percent salary increase in 2007. She noted that the 2007 salary increase will cost $1.5 million over three years.

She said West had granted employee salary increases in the past two years to woo worker support in a potential re-election campaign.

“The goal was to be re-elected,” Rodgers said. “Dennis is inheriting a mess.”