Council strips pay hikes from city budget

Almost $50,000 in proposed salary increases for 12 nonunion city employees were stripped from Mayor David Condon’s 2015 budget proposal Monday night, including those for the mayor’s cabinet, as Spokane City Council members approved a modified budget with more than $600,000 in new spending focused on their own priorities.

The council was nearly unanimous in its support for the budget and its changes, largely authored by Council President Ben Stuckart. Councilman Mike Fagan voted against the budget.

The vote, Stuckart said, is in line with what he vowed to do days after the mayor released the 2015 budget proposal in October. At the time, Stuckart called the mayor’s proposal “utterly ridiculous” and vowed to create “a new budget that reflects the community’s values.”

“We’re organized,” he said of the five-member liberal voting bloc on the council. “We came up with a plan and we did a much better job at getting our priorities out there.”

Blocking pay raises wasn’t a priority, but Stuckart said he did it to “make a point about following policy.”

He cited a city policy that said any pay increases for nonunionized employees must follow a performance evaluation. Stuckart asked Heather Lowe, the city’s human resources director, for copies of all such evaluations. Lowe didn’t provide any evaluations in her response, but instead called the city’s performance review process “outdated and ineffective.”

After blocking pay increases for 12 employees – including Rick Romero, the city’s public works director, and Brian Schaeffer, assistant fire chief – Stuckart said he understood there was the possibility the evaluations had been done and the increases would be reinstated.

Gavin Cooley, the city’s chief financial officer, said he believed the administration would act.

“We have the remainder of 2014 to address the issues the council president raised,” he said, adding that budget talks with the council started “early and often” and had been “a very collaborative effort.”

As many members said throughout the meeting, the council and city administration agreed on “99.9 percent” of the city’s spending.

In reality, the council’s budget changes amount to less than half a percent of the city’s $170 million general fund, which pays for programs mostly supported by taxes, such as the police, fire, parks and library departments. In total, the city will spend $605 million next year.

The council also funded a policy analyst position to serve the council. The position has a price tag of $98,000 a year and will act as the council’s attorney. Since the creation of the strong mayor form of government, the council has relied on the city’s legal department, which technically serves the mayor.

Stuckart said adding this position to the city’s legislative branch helps define a separation of powers.

Fagan scoffed at this theory, noting that this position helped turn him against the budget. Fagan also took issue with the creation of an assistant planner position, with a salary of $86,000, to look after the council’s transportation priorities, which he said took too seriously the threat of climate change, something he doesn’t believe in.

Fagan also didn’t support creating a $60,000-a-year compliance officer position to oversee an upcoming city law compelling local contractors to employ a certain number of apprentices on sizable construction projects.

Lastly, Fagan disagreed with the creation of a code enforcement specialist position, which follows legislation put forth by Councilwoman Amber Waldref dealing with abandoned properties and substandard houses.

Waldref said without such positions, policy set by the council would be useless.

“We’re seeing more of these (degrading homes in Spokane) than we’ve seen in our history,” she said.

Waldref said the planning position will deal with “pent-up interest” on the council.

“I think we have a list about a mile long on projects we’d like to work on,” she said.

The council also moved $108,000 to the city’s COPS program, and members of the newly created Police Ombudsman Commission will receive a total of $15,000 for professional development.

Councilman Jon Snyder praised Stuckart as “very assertive of council concerns.”

“When it comes right down to it, there really wasn’t that big a disagreement,” he said.

Fagan agreed, to a point.

“We were very, very close on just about everything,” he said. “But sometimes you have to stand on principle. You stand for what you believe.”