PORT ANGELES — Faced with a daunting budget year in 2011, city of Port Angeles staff are seeking suggestions and input from the public so that tough decisions are made with the best possible idea of public opinion.
Yvonne Ziomkowski, director of finance, said the city is planning a survey of all city residents.
All residents will receive a survey in their monthly utility bill that will be mailed in July, she said.
The survey, which will be finalized at an upcoming City Council meeting, will include questions about priorities, Ziomkowski said.
“We will start sending the survey out in the utility bills the first week of July,” she said.
“As soon as we do, we will also make the survey available on SurveyMonkey.com.”
Utility bills are the most cost effective way to send out a paper survey for those who do not have computers, Ziomkowski said.
“We are looking at a way to cut expenses, not add more by sending all of these out separately,” she said.
The survey would reach about 10,000 households, which house the city’s 20,000 or so residents, she said.
She wasn’t yet sure if City Council would ask each resident to return a survey or ask each household to fill one out.
Ziomkowski said she is not yet sure how much money will need to be trimmed from the next year’s budget, but she is certain it will be substantial.
“There are definitely some difficult choices ahead,” she said.
“We will have to make some cuts and we have to look at sustainable ones — not just one-time cuts.”
The City Council and staff were prompted to survey the public about the priorities after negative feedback over past decisions, she said without pinpointing those decisions.
In the last year, the city has cut wages and hours for seasonal workers, handed the pool over to a taxing district, reduced hours at the utility payment counter, and started a park sponsorship program to cover park maintenance was ways to reduce costs.
“We really want to hear back from [city residents] in these surveys,” Ziomkowski said.
“It is necessary for everyone to understand that we cannot hear that everything is important — because although we know that everything is important, we need to know what is essential and what is just nice to have.”
She said that because surveys cannot be done every year, the results could be used for several years in making budget decisions.
The city expects about 4 percent less sales revenue — which funds the “core services,” such as police, fire, street maintenance, and parks and recreation.
In addition to less revenue coming in, the city also is seeing an increase in expenses.
“We want to budget for priorities,” Ziomkowski said.
In order to do that, she said she would like to see a clear picture of what the priorities are.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
