PORT ANGELES — The city of Port Angeles came out about $800,000 on top in its general fund in 2008 despite decreasing revenue, and city staff are recommending that the funds be placed into reserves rather than eliminate cuts to city facilities such as the William Shore Memorial Pool.
“We are in a cutback mode,” said City Manager Kent Myers. “We’re not looking to add anything to our budget.”
The city has about $3 million in reserves, and with tight budgets expected for the next few years, staff members are projecting that the city’s reserve account will get smaller each year through 2014.
The city had more funds than it had budgeted mostly because of savings from vacant positions, said city Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski.
Expenses were $688,000 lower than expected, according to the city finance department.
“I think it’s very responsible that in this bad economic time that we actually saved money,” Ziomkowski said.
The city stopped funding the public pool on March 30, and a ballot measure is before voters within the Port Angeles School District to create a taxing district, known as a metropolitan park district, to support its expenses. The pool has been funded by donations mostly raised by Save the Pool PA for the last month.
The city also cut funding to the Fine Arts Center and Arthur Feiro Marine Life Center in half last year, and city staff is recommending that funding to those facilities be eliminated in 2010.
The surplus became official in April.
In January, Ziomkowski projected that the 2008 surplus would be $800,000.
In 2007, the city had a surplus of $1.2 million. That was spent on The Gateway transit center and the Eighth Street bridges replacement project, she said.
In an e-mail to three City Council members, Save the Pool PA Chairwoman Krista Winn proposed that the city use its surplus to keep the pool open until the park district, if approved, begins receiving property tax revenue in April 2010.
On Saturday, Winn declined comment, saying she didn’t have enough information.
Myers replied to Winn’s e-mail, telling her that using the surplus on the pool wouldn’t be financially responsible.
“It would not be prudent to use these one-time funds to fund ongoing operations such as the city pool or any other city operation,” he wrote.
Myers said there is no limit to what the city can use the surplus funds on, but with sales-tax revenue already 10 percent below what was projected for this year, he thinks the best decision is to put the funds into the reserves.
Now [staff] recognize they weren’t conservative enough,” he said.
“We are below budget in the revenue category.”
The City Council will ultimately make the decision on how to spend the surplus, likely in July, when the city will know how much revenue it received for the first half of the year, Myers said.
Traditionally, any surplus funds have been used on capital projects.
Bob Coons, city human resources manager, said the vacant positions that contributed to savings in 2008 included two police officers, two police dispatchers, a civil engineer, a warehouse storekeeper and a legal assistant.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
