The Kent City Council on Tuesday agreed with Mayor Suzette Cooke to keep the city’s popular neighborhood-council program rather than drop it as part of its 2010 budget reductions.
Cooke and John Hodgson, chief administrative officer, worked with city staff to find another $237,000 in savings for the rest of the year as part a budget reduction of nearly $7 million from the original general fund budget of $80 million.
The $237,000 in savings includes $50,000 from leaving vacant a recreation manager position; $40,000 from Kent Municipal Court grant revenue, which will be used in the general fund to keep the court interpreter program; $40,000 to use a current city employee to fill a Council staff annexation job; $35,000 savings in Economic and Community Development contract services; $34,000 savings in Council contract services; and $38,000 from the $1 million flood fight reserve fund set aside to combat Green River flooding.
“If we can say this looks good so we don’t have to cut staff, then let’s do this,” Council President Jamie Perry said at the budget workshop.
The other budget-cutting options, which were not formally discussed at the workshop, included eliminating the staff position of Toni Azzola, the neighborhood program coordinator.
“I’m comfortable with this option,” Perry said. “Cutting a budget is never easy but this is the least disruptive option.”
The Council has gone back and forth with Cooke and city staff over the last several weeks at budget workshops about what to keep, add or drop from the initial list of cuts Cooke gave to the Council in April.
The Council directed city staff earlier this month to keep the Kent Senior Center lunch program subsidy of $30,000; Municipal Court interpreters at a cost of $35,000; and two bicycle police officers at $100,000 that were part of the proposed cuts. The city also needed $102,000 out of the general fund to pay King County for animal control and sheltering services for the final six months of this year under a new regional program.
Representatives from four of Kent’s 18 Neighborhood Council programs told the Council last week at its regular meeting to drop any idea of cutting the neighborhood program because of their improved neighborhoods with the help of the city.
The Council discussed cutting the neighborhood program coordinator at a May 10 workshop as a way to reduce the mayor’s office budget. The neighborhood program falls under the mayor’s office budget.
The Council is expected to adopt the revised 2010 budget in June.
Cooke told the Council that her meetings with city department heads led to the proposed budget cuts.
“Our process was to work with the directors of each department and we have been respecting the recommendations by the directors,” Cooke said.
The Council spent the second part of its Tuesday workshop looking ahead to the 2011 city budget.
Councilman Ron Harmon suggested the Council form a citizen advisory committee of residents with financial work experience to help with the 2011 budget, especially after so many additional cuts had to be made in 2010 because revenue forecasts were too optimistic.
“We need outside eyes to help guide us through the budget with updates to the Council from the committee,” Harmon said.
Councilman Dennis Higgins agreed with Harmon.
“There were very unrealistic assumptions in last year’s budget,” Higgins said. “More eyes on the budget is a great idea.”
Public hearings about the 2011 budget will start in the fall. The Council will adopt next year’s budget in November or December.
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