SEQUIM — Sequim’s draft budget for 2009 calls for no employee layoffs, but that didn’t mean no gnashing of teeth at Monday’s City Council study session.
Interim City Manager and Police Chief Robert Spinks delivered the news:
Though no jobs will be eliminated, services will be cut back next year at City Hall, the Planning Department and the police station, as one-third of the city’s work force goes to a 38-hour week.
The front desks at city facilities will close an hour earlier next year to give staffers more uninterrupted time to work on projects, said Karen Goschen, Sequim’s administrative services director.
This measure could save $89,000 — just a chip in Sequim’s financial shortfall.
With 2009 general fund revenues projected at $7.283 million and expenses forecast at $7.563 million, the council must hunt for other places to cut.
Two possibilities: Reduce this year’s $100,000 for the Sequim Boys & Girls Club teen program to $60,000, and cut the city’s contributions to other outside agencies, such as its $18,000 for the Clallam County Economic Development Council.
Walt Schubert, though he calls himself the conservative one on the council, likes neither idea.
“You don’t cut back on economic development in a recession,” Schubert said, adding that that would be like ending advertising when business slows.
And to his mind, taking money away from teen activities is as foolish.
‘Nowhere else to go’
“These kids have nowhere else to go,” other than the Boys & Girls Club on weekend nights, Schubert said.
“If we don’t fund [the teen club], we’re going to pay for it anyway. We’ll pay at the opposite end, when the kids get in trouble.”
“I’m not a person who believes in social programs,” he added, “[but] I believe in the Boys & Girls Club.”
The draft budget dips into the city’s reserves for $280,000 to cover the gap between revenue and expenditures, and leaves $1,043,390 in its rainy-day fund.
Spinks pointed this out to the council members, noting that they had indicated they wanted $1 million left in the bank throughout 2009.
So Mayor Laura Dubois suggested using the $43,390 to cover its $30,000 for United Way human services, and contribute the rest to the Economic Development Council and the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
She did not, however, suggest a funding mechanism for the Boys & Girls Club.
Core services
The city must provide core services ¬– police, street maintenance, sewer, water — and while “social services are very important to quality of life,” Dubois said, Sequim can’t afford full funding of them all.
The city has been laboring under limits on property taxes, and a ballot measure to increase Sequim’s sales tax has met some opposition.
The proposed two-tenths of 1 cent hike is on the general election ballot, which voters must complete by today.
Dubois reminded the people in the audience Monday that the tax increase, if approved, will help pay for street improvements inside the city.
“If the citizens want to cut taxes, they’re going to get fewer services, and they need to realize that,” she said, adding that just as core services are in line for trimming, organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club must also take a hit.
“It’s difficult to cut back on these agencies that do such good work, but we have to do it.”
Expenditures questioned
The mayor, a budget analyst before she retired to Sequim, also questioned other expenditures.
For one, she sees large city vehicles being used to merely carry a couple of people around.
And what about that $80,000 “sewer camera”?
That’s there to monitor sewer lines, City Attorney Craig Ritchie replied. It’s a loss-prevention device that could warn of an impending blowout.
“Eighty thousand sounds like a lot of money, but then I wouldn’t want to have to do the job the sewer camera does,” added Schubert.
Once the council finished that discussion, a few audience members offered their thoughts on funding a teen club.
“Maybe you need to consider moving away from the million dollars in reserve and think about $750,000 or $800,000,” said Pat Clark, a frequent council meeting observer.
“Really think about this as you’re going to sleep at night.”
“I look at the teens as citizens. They are citizens and they do have needs,” added Jerry Sinn, president of the Sequim Boys & Girls Club board.
He said if the council can contribute $60,000 to the teen club in 2009, the board will go after an additional $40,000 in grants and local donations to keep it open.
Crime prevention
Spinks, who last year called the teen program a crime-prevention measure, suggested dipping into Sequim’s building fund. About $2 million has been set aside for a new City Hall and other capital projects.
That got Don Hall, a former council member, to stand up and say: “I think the kids are more important than brick and mortar.”
Real estate broker Mike ¬McAleer spoke up for the Clallam Economic Development Council.
“This time of economic hardship,” he said, “is not the time to pull the rug out of economic development. It’s going to provide you with return in terms of sales taxes, permit fees and property tax.”
The EDC is worth an $18,000 contribution from Sequim, added McAleer, who is the agency’s secretary-treasurer.
Another item in the proposed 2009 budget earmarks $45,000 for a new municipal court in Sequim.
In recent months the council and Spinks have talked about how such a court, run at the Transit Center, would save residents and Sequim police officers considerable time; they wouldn’t have to travel to the Clallam County District Court in Port Angeles to contest traffic tickets, seek restraining orders and deal with misdemeanor offenses.
The council didn’t, however, get to the municipal court question during its Monday meeting.
The members will continue wrestling with the 2009 budget in the coming weeks, during its public meetings at 6 p.m. Nov. 10 and 24 in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The council must pass the budget by Dec. 31.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailyews.com.
