Contracting keeps city costs down
One Friday evening after 5 p.m., I was enjoying helping my twin 4-year-old granddaughters whiz down the slide at Mission Park, when I discovered a hornet’s nest within four inches of them.
I immediately removed my granddaughters from the area and warned the parents and children in the vicinity to steer clear of the slide. I then called the city’s park director and told him the problem. In less than two hours, Senske, the contractor who maintains Spokane Valley parks, was there and solved the problem. That’s great service!
Why are they so diligent? Why do they keep our parks in wonderful condition and respond immediately if there is a problem? One reason is that they know there are firms out there willing to compete for the park maintenance contract. They know that keeping the customer happy at a competitive price is the key to securing their future.
One of the early decisions Spokane Valley City Council made was to use contractors wherever possible to provide city services. This rationale was based on the fundamental truth that our competitive, free enterprise system produces the best products and services at the lowest price. It also produces needed jobs, helping our local economy. This decision has proven over and over to be true for the city.
The benefits of contracting to our citizens are enormous. It means higher quality of service for our citizens and lower tax rates to pay for those services. It also means that underperforming contractors can be replaced with those who perform well
But using contractors has its effect on the way we do business. It means that we do not have a large staff with expertise in every possible discipline a city could desire. For example, we do not have a bridge designer, a building designer, or an urban designer on staff, thus saving us having to pay for such positions. Rather, we have those people who are capable of contracting with experts in those fields. For specific projects, we contract with talented people who have the time and expertise to provide this service, paying them only for the time they are needed.
In addition, our staff is kept busy keeping the city running. Our traffic engineer is very busy overseeing new signal installation, setting signal timing for intersections, analyzing traffic flows, examining accident rates, and meeting citizen requests and city needs. For this reason, when we wanted year 2030 projected traffic flow rates so we could make street plans, we opted for outside help. We contracted with a traffic engineer who has the time and expertise to model future traffic using the Spokane Regional Transportation Council’s computer model. By doing so, we did not have to pay for full-time wages and benefits.
As a result, your city has a very small staff. No city in Washington even half our size has fewer employees than Spokane Valley. This brings you excellent service and low tax rates. At $1.50 per $1,000 assessed value, we have the second-lowest property tax rate in the county, behind Deer Park. However, you should expect to see that, as a contract city, we can and do make use of consultants in order to provide the superior service and low cost you have a right to expect from us.