Property Tax Increase: State law allows cities to increase their property tax levy by 1% each year. Yes, this is a small increase. Most tax increases are small. The problem is they add up, and it never ends. I believe the city already collects more than enough to provide quality, basic government services. Like the state and federal governments, Centralia has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. I pledged to never vote to raise taxes, and I've kept that promise. Tax increase passed, 5-2 (Trent and Henderson).
2012 Budget, first reading: Like last year's budget, this budget is not balanced. Operating expenditures are greater than revenue. More importantly, the budget is structurally unbalanced, meaning a growing deficit year-to-year, with spending increasingly outpacing revenues. I don't have a huge problem using reserves to cover a one-year "blip." But we're way past that. Sooner or later we will be forced to adjust to the "new normal." The question is, will we burn up all our reserves first?
This year, the council wisely pursued policies to divide the city's 26% unreserved fund balance ("reserves") into "buckets." This gives a clearer picture of the various demands/commitments/purposes on this seemingly large sum. 7.5% ($675k) is allocated to operating reserves. This is the money that policy allows for maintaining the status quo during a short-term downturn (which this isn't -- we're experiencing a long-term economic correction). The 2012 budget raids 35% of that. I believe this is unwise. It's time for the city to retract and adjust.
The initial deficit was almost $500k. Through mostly one-time fixes that was cut down to $292k, which we took out of reserves. This year's budget does basically nothing to address the structural deficit, which we've talked about doing in 3 years, but have no concrete plan to tackle. The parks budget is larger than the streets budget and we're talking about cutting police before lower-priority services. These are not fiscal policies I can support. I voted no. Budget passed 6-1.
I've come to believe Centralia's budget process is broken. Each year the status quo is carried forward, then we try to single out cuts. It doesn't work.
We need to turn that on its head with something closer to a zero-based model, among other reforms. It might look something like this: First, we obtain a hypothetical 5%, 10%, and 15% reduced budget from each department head. This is not for blind, across-the-board cuts. I would oppose that. This is an information gathering tool, and probably not done every year. Then each budget cycle, departments would be given a total appropriation based on available revenues and priorities. Each program then justifies its existence and expense, which is then stacked up against the total department appropriation. When the money's gone, it's gone. We also need to be more realistic and firm in union negotiations. We need to save for the future with ER&R plans for big-ticket consumables like computers and vehicles. We should also start the budget process much earlier in the year. I've been saying most of these things since day one, but they're not my ideas. These are some of the processes Lewis County and Chehalis, among others, are using.
Proposed 2012 Budget document: http://www.cityofcentralia.com/News.asp?NewsID=132
Meeting Agenda: http://www.cityofcentralia.com/Agendas.asp?AMID=119&Display=Agenda
