Friday, October 08, 2010
Budget Discussions, including option of raising taxes, under way
So far, as promised, the Lakewood council has had one work session on the proposed city budget. Here are highlights about the budget proposal. Remember the draft comes from the staff and manager. So the draft budget is subject to change and almost certainly will change.
For one thing, if you own a house in Lakewood, your taxes would go up under the draft. Should the city of Lakewood charge homeowners $1.75 a month (on average) for sewers via a sewer tax? That would raise $300,000-$350,000 a year but be yet another tax in a down economy. I seriously don't see the seven of us doing that ESPECIALLY in this economy.
But who knows? Three new council members took office in January, and unless you polled everyone I don't know how you would predict whether this council is willing to raise taxes or not.
You can find a plethora of other highlights in the materials provided to council, some of which I scanned in and placed at this site below. (Tip - Click on 'Go to SlideShare and then click on the little Full-Screen icon on the lower right of the frame in order to actually be able to read the document)
After I scanned this in I saw the last several pages are already on the city website, so that's a clearer option for the PowerPoint slides.
There are no layoffs contemplated in the budget - that's different than what you've seen in many other cities - but Lakewood has apparently had its pain for now though then you'll recall this is budgeted with a tax increase. The city shed 19 positions over the last couple years. How we maintain our services - and yet don't raise taxes - will clearly be a focus of discussions. I've known a lot of people who've been out of work for far longer than I would have expected. We can't raise taxes, and we all need to adjust our expectations for what any sort of budget - be it a home budget, a business budget and certainly a government budget - can do.
It's not a very eventful budget. I had the chuckle because if you read the slides called 'Budget Highlights' you'll see that the very first screen has the budget highlights for this year, 2010. This budget is so quiet we had to import accomplishments from the previous year! There are also some highlights of course that apply to 2011 and 2012. There is a position added to work on economic development: we need to bring more jobs to Lakewood to help invest our way out of the slumping economy, and make better use of the land along I-5.
At Wednesday's hearing, Councilman Mike Brandstetter made a good point about the council getting more involved in figuring what businesses we want to attract, and how to attract them. A huge thrust of the city economic development plan right now is to bring hotels, and that's great as far as it goes. Hotels raise land values and make the area more attractive, bring visitor tax dollars in, etc..
But Mike works at Bates Technical College, and he made the point that a lot of people who work in the hospitality industry are taking classes so they can get jobs that pay more than jobs in the hospitality industry. What's Lakewood doing to attract higher-paying jobs such as, say, contractors who serve Joint Base Lewis-McChord. We began a good dialogue on this subject Wednesday night.
Anyway, that's about economic development. I refer you to the slides for more detail about the budget. Basically, what I called this draft budget at the first budget meeting, Monday, was a "duck, cover, hold" budget: we're trying to protect what's going on good now within the city. There's no money for the kind of simple stuff we might have imagined five or even three years ago. I remember when we got all excited about how many police officers to assign to neighborhoods; now we're excited to still have our current staffing level of police officers.
If you like a lot of interest and have passion about roads, parks, and/or planning issues, click here for links to more information specifically about what was presented regarding planning, economic development, parks and public works.
The budget hearings continue for the next couple of Monday and Wednesday nights. The police budget is up for discussion Monday. I'll keep you posted. We're about a month away from intense deliberations and final decisions.
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For one thing, if you own a house in Lakewood, your taxes would go up under the draft. Should the city of Lakewood charge homeowners $1.75 a month (on average) for sewers via a sewer tax? That would raise $300,000-$350,000 a year but be yet another tax in a down economy. I seriously don't see the seven of us doing that ESPECIALLY in this economy.
But who knows? Three new council members took office in January, and unless you polled everyone I don't know how you would predict whether this council is willing to raise taxes or not.
You can find a plethora of other highlights in the materials provided to council, some of which I scanned in and placed at this site below. (Tip - Click on 'Go to SlideShare and then click on the little Full-Screen icon on the lower right of the frame in order to actually be able to read the document)
Lakewood's Draft Budget Overview
View more presentations from Walter Neary.
After I scanned this in I saw the last several pages are already on the city website, so that's a clearer option for the PowerPoint slides.
There are no layoffs contemplated in the budget - that's different than what you've seen in many other cities - but Lakewood has apparently had its pain for now though then you'll recall this is budgeted with a tax increase. The city shed 19 positions over the last couple years. How we maintain our services - and yet don't raise taxes - will clearly be a focus of discussions. I've known a lot of people who've been out of work for far longer than I would have expected. We can't raise taxes, and we all need to adjust our expectations for what any sort of budget - be it a home budget, a business budget and certainly a government budget - can do.
It's not a very eventful budget. I had the chuckle because if you read the slides called 'Budget Highlights' you'll see that the very first screen has the budget highlights for this year, 2010. This budget is so quiet we had to import accomplishments from the previous year! There are also some highlights of course that apply to 2011 and 2012. There is a position added to work on economic development: we need to bring more jobs to Lakewood to help invest our way out of the slumping economy, and make better use of the land along I-5.
At Wednesday's hearing, Councilman Mike Brandstetter made a good point about the council getting more involved in figuring what businesses we want to attract, and how to attract them. A huge thrust of the city economic development plan right now is to bring hotels, and that's great as far as it goes. Hotels raise land values and make the area more attractive, bring visitor tax dollars in, etc..
But Mike works at Bates Technical College, and he made the point that a lot of people who work in the hospitality industry are taking classes so they can get jobs that pay more than jobs in the hospitality industry. What's Lakewood doing to attract higher-paying jobs such as, say, contractors who serve Joint Base Lewis-McChord. We began a good dialogue on this subject Wednesday night.
Anyway, that's about economic development. I refer you to the slides for more detail about the budget. Basically, what I called this draft budget at the first budget meeting, Monday, was a "duck, cover, hold" budget: we're trying to protect what's going on good now within the city. There's no money for the kind of simple stuff we might have imagined five or even three years ago. I remember when we got all excited about how many police officers to assign to neighborhoods; now we're excited to still have our current staffing level of police officers.
If you like a lot of interest and have passion about roads, parks, and/or planning issues, click here for links to more information specifically about what was presented regarding planning, economic development, parks and public works.
The budget hearings continue for the next couple of Monday and Wednesday nights. The police budget is up for discussion Monday. I'll keep you posted. We're about a month away from intense deliberations and final decisions.
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Walter, we could quit paying some mileage and excess frills for city manager, etc. that is a bit excessive and that would help. We also have assistants for him that are a bit layered. I think are admin is a bit heavy laden in the city. He needs to do his job, not have multi assistants.
SDM
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SDM
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