Post Falls plans budget

Post Falls department heads are seeking about $3 million in additional personnel, operating expenses and equipment in next year’s budget, but with tax revenue predicted to remain flat many of those requests are likely to be denied.

The Post Falls City Council will hear presentations Tuesday from the department heads at a public budget workshop at Post Falls Police headquarters.

Among the pitches will be calls for five new police officers and their patrol cars and equipment, a Street Department dump truck and plow and $400,000 more in materials for street maintenance, $50,000 more for City Hall utilities and a 10 percent increase in library funding.

“It’s not unusual to have that every year. You get some grandiose requests. The difficulty is paring it back,” said City Administrator Eric Keck. “You have to determine what are needs, what are wants and what we can afford in this economic climate.”

The city won’t get its tax revenue estimates from the county until mid-June, said Post Falls Finance Director Shelly Enderud. But she said she expects revenues to remain stable.

Most growth has occurred within the city’s urban renewal districts. “We don’t have access to it,” Enderud said of the tax money those areas generate.

Meanwhile the costs of supplies, especially gasoline, continue to increase.

City Council members have expressed a willingness to consider using about $260,000 in forgone taxes to fund additional police officers, but even that money isn’t enough to pay for the more than $370,000 in new officers and related equipment requested.

It’s the first request in a five-year plan to hire 25 officers and six support staff over five years. If all were hired the Post Falls Police would bring its staffing level up to 1.8 officers for every 1,000 residents. The ratio is currently 1.3 officers for every 1,000 residents.

Using the city’s forgone taxes would cost the average Post Falls homeowner about $18 more a year in taxes. The money is taxing authority the city could have used in previous years but chose not to at that time.

But Keck is worried that if too many taxing districts choose to use foregone taxes this year the impact to property owners could be significant.

North Idaho College and Kootenai County also are considering forgone taxes as a solution to stagnant revenue levels, he said.

“This year could be a perfect storm for taxation. In a year of a downturned economy, we don’t want to add to it,” Keck said.

And that doesn’t even take into account other departments’ requests.

Public Works Director Terry Werner said that previous years’ requests for funding to seal the city’s streets were reduced, leaving the Street Department in a predicament where it is falling behind on routine maintenance. Hence this year’s request.

“It’s the balance we would need to keep our sealing on a seven-year rotation. We’re not meeting that now,” Werner said.

Sealing streets prevents water from seeping into cracks and causing damage that requires more extensive repairs like grinding down the surface of the roadway and repaving. Spending money on sealing now saves money on road repair in the future, Werner said.

Library use has been growing, prompting that department’s request for more money for technology, magazines and more, Enderud said.

For the Parks and Recreation Department, the biggest budget request is for money to convert the Street Department’s former shop to park uses. The department also wants to convert a seasonal job to full-time status and to add another seasonal employee.

All told city departments are requesting an additional 20 employees at a cost of $1.2 million, including benefits.

“This is one budget year I really don’t know what our chances are,” said Parks Director David Fair. “The emphasis will be on police. We just have to make our best case.”