Valley council passes budget

With about $6 million in reserves, Spokane Valley’s 2007 budget adopted Tuesday is well in the black, although the city plans eventually to cut back its snow plowing in flat, residential areas in coming years to help keep it that way.

“Prior to 2002, my neighborhood had never been plowed as long as I’d lived there,” Councilman Mike De-Vleming said. Unless the city needed to rescue neighborhoods blanketed by a big storm, he and others on the council said, to save money the city should hold off on plowing residential areas that aren’t on hills.

The current guidelines call for all city streets to be plowed if a snowfall exceeds 4 inches. That includes what are known as Priority 4 streets: flat residential roads that are the lowest priority for plowing crews.

After recent deliberations on cutting back expenses in the city’s road fund, the City Council decided to refine the plowing requirements at a future meeting.

“I had people tell me they’d rather have snow left on their streets than have it all plowed in the driveways,” said Mayor Diana Wilhite. She also suggested that the city look at plowing only after a larger amount of snowfall has accumulated.

In an earlier motion, the city’s $77 million budget for next year was approved unanimously. About half of the city’s expenses are paid from the general fund; other costs are covered by nearly 20 funds set aside for capital projects or for specific uses designated by various taxes and grants.

For example, the $4.5 million street fund received about half of its revenue from gas taxes this year. The remainder has been subsidized by the general fund – a practice that city financial managers plan to discontinue in coming years.

“It seems to me that what we are doing is, basically we are prioritizing,” said Councilman Bill Gothmann. Money for law enforcement, for example, comes from the general fund, and Gothmann said that if it came down to it, public safety would take priority over spending for roads.

A decision to cut back on plowing beginning in 2008 followed an earlier council discussion on the city’s long-term financial plan, which projected street fund deficit in 2009.

The council opted to postpone that deficit until 2010 by reducing by $220,000 in 2009 the amount spent on street repairs. The plan also saves about $260,000 in 2008 and future years by cutting back on plowing Priority 4 streets.

Public Works Director Neil Kersten pointed out that the city has spent substantially less than it has budgeted for snow plowing in recent years, and there is a $540,000 reserve account for plowing in case of a particularly bad snow year.

The budget also includes a $5.2 million reserve fund to keep other city services consistent in the event of an economic downturn. About $4 million of that was added in the past year because of higher-than-anticipated sales tax receipts, interest on city savings and better-than-expected revenues at the CenterPlace community center, said City Finance Director Ken Thompson.

Additionally, the budget contains a $325,000 reserve fund for operations at CenterPlace.