Council discusses budget situation

Thu., July 22, 2010

By Lisa Leinberger lisal@spokesman.com (509) 459-5449

The Liberty Lake City Council continued its conversation about an impending budget crisis Tuesday night at its regular meeting.

Councilmember David Crump told the council that after some community and other input there were three ideas to consider.

The first was to continue to reduce expenses, making cuts in different departments and holding off on some maintenance programs.

The second was to have special events in the city, such as a fun run.

The third idea was to help create more revenue from the city. The state gives municipalities four major revenue sources – property taxes, sales tax, utility tax and business and occupation taxes. Right now, Liberty Lake collects only property and sales tax – which is 79 percent of its general fund revenue. The economic downturn has affected how much revenue the city is collecting.

It has not, however collected B&O taxes or utility taxes – taxes on such services as telephone, gas, electricity and cable.

Jessica Platt, administrative services manager, told the council that she looked at 12 cities roughly the size of Liberty Lake and found that the city could collect between $750,000 to $1.2 million with a 6 percent utility tax.

She also told the council that they could choose any percentage of the tax, but 6 percent is the maximum the city can collect without a vote from the general public.

Crump told the council what services the city was required by state law to provide to its citizens. Those services include a municipal court, traffic safety, a city attorney, roads, surface water, planning, land use, building codes, worker’s compensation, a budget, executive and legislative branches, public safety and more.

He added that although they are required by law to provide these services, the law does not state what level of these services they must provide. He also mentioned that the city was not required to provide parks or a library.

Mayor Wendy Van Orman asked the council to think about the quality of life the residents of Liberty Lake enjoy.

“The discretionary items are part of the quality of life,” she said.

She said she hopes to put a budget calculator on the city website so citizens can track any increase or decrease in services and how much that will cost. She also suggested a door-to-door survey of residents to find out what they think.

No decisions were made and the council plans to discuss the city’s financial situation more at the Aug. 3 meeting.

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