Council’s bloated budget

In an era where there is so much uncertainty and economic pressure, businesses and nonprofits are struggling to balance budgets.

In this same era, the Spokane City Council is operating on a 2021 budget that includes a 56% increase in salary and benefits since 2019. Most businesses use COLA (cost-of-living allowance) factors to address salary increases and over the past two years the increases have been under 2% year over year.

How can this be? A closer look shows that the City Council has increased its support team from a 1-to-1 ratio to 2-to-1. When the layers on this onion are peeled back one must ask why we need so much duplication between the administration branch and legislative branch.

Positions like like policy director are duplicated and actually the council has two policy/government affairs positions. The council has a communications director and a homeless director while the administration has very similar positions. What does the council’s manager of neighborhood connectivity initiatives do? And the council’s budget officer looks to raise taxes while the administration’s CFO tries to balance the budget.

One must ask the question does this duplication and large council salary increase exist because the community as a whole is making demands or is the council itself and its partisan base driving their agenda? It is time for the community to have a broad conversation about the role and scope of the Spokane City Council. It is my belief that this should be a ballot issue.

Chud Wendle

Spokane