Keep proposed 2010 budget cuts at current level, mayor says

Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke recommended at a budget workshop Wednesday that the City Council make no further cuts in the proposed 2010 city budget.

Cooke presented her preliminary budget in October to the Council that included the layoffs of 24 employees by the end of last month in an effort to help address a projected $4.6 million revenue shortfall next year in the general fund. City officials will leave another 27 positions vacant next year.

“We are monitoring finances going into 2010, but we are not going to recommend additional cuts,” Cooke said at the Wednesday meeting at City Hall.

Now the seven-member Council must decide whether the cuts go far enough or too far.

The Council’s Operations Committee of Tim Clark, Debbie Raplee and Les Thomas will consider adoption of the budget at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

If the Operations Committee approves the budget, it goes to a Council vote 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, following a public hearing.

Cooke is proposing a $157.8 million operating budget, including a general fund budget of $80.3 million and $11.4 million for capital projects.

On Wednesday, the Council met with city department directors as well as Chief Administrative Officer John Hodgson to discuss the 2010 budget and potential impacts or changes.

The Council and staff discussed the lack of sports fields, whether the $1 million set aside by Cooke next year for a flood emergency fund is still necessary, the possibility of filling a vacant prosecuting attorney position in the law department, the lack of money to repair city streets and the impact of the annexation of 24,000 Panther Lake residents to the city.

More than 70 soccer club parents and players showed up at a budget public hearing last month to ask the Council to provide more soccer fields.

Thomas asked staff why nothing has been done to replace the sports fields lost two years ago when the city built the ShoWare Center. City officials had said when they announced plans for the new arena that the lost fields would be replaced.

“Plans are moving forward, but we do not have the money,” Hodgson said. “When the money comes in, we’re on it.”

The city plans to work with the Kent School District to install artificial turf fields with lights at Kent-Meridian High School at a cost of about $3 million to $3.5 million.

A similar plan for new fields could be built at Kentridge High School.

But city officials don’t know where to find that kind of money as city revenues continue to drop, so no timeline has been set to build the fields.

“We need to look at creative ways to fund capital projects,” Councilwoman Jamie Danielson said.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Albertson said sports programs offered through the city and the Kent School District have enough field space.

“It’s the private clubs that have the challenge to find field time,” Albertson said. “I don’t know if that’s a priority for us to see that all private clubs have field time. But people do want to know that we have more than just a plan.”

Council President Debbie Raplee asked city staff if the $1 million flood emergency fund remained necessary because of new reports from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that chances of flooding in the Green River Valley are now 1 in 33 versus 1 in 3 when Cooke announced plans to set aside the reserve fund. The corps installed a grout curtain to help slow the leak at the embankment next to the Howard Hanson Dam.

“I’d be very cautious to spend that money until we get through the winter,” Hodgson said in response to Raplee. “If we make it through this year, it’s only this year. And a million dollars would go fast if there is an event.”

Councilman Ron Harmon said he would like to see the city fill a vacant prosecuting attorney’s position in the law department because of the heavy caseload at the Kent Municipal Court.

The city will hire a prosecuting attorney and other court staff when the Panther Lake annexation becomes effective next July, Hodgson said.

Hodgson also told the Council that next year’s annexation costs are not part of the 2010 city budget. The city will fund the costs of annexation for 2010 through new property taxes, sales taxes and other fees paid by Panther Lake residents as well as money from the state. City staff plans to present an annexation budget in January to the Council.

Tim LaPorte, city public works director, told the Council that it needs to find a way to fund repairs of city streets as well as new street projects. City staff plans to bring street funding ideas to the Council early next year. The funding proposals could include a street utility fee.