2013 Adopted City of Spokane Budget

Building the City’s annual budget requires many months of hard work from all parts of the City organization and weeks of public testimony and deliberation by the City Council.

The result of that work for 2013 was a “no-growth,” flat budget that overcame an anticipated $10 million shortfall within the City’s General Fund. Our newly adopted budget features a clear theme of affordability, accountability, and alignment.

Budget Breakdown

The City of Spokane currently now is operating under the adopted 2013 Budget. This overview will provide you with a better understanding of what the overall City budget looks like and what services it pays for.

The overall 2013 City budget totals $618.6 million, more than ½ percent lower than in 2012, and includes the following components:

• General Fund - A 2013 General Fund budget of $161.5 million, down about $3 million from the 2012 adopted budget.

  We consider the 2013 Budget to be a flat budget compared to the year before. The lower figure primarily is the result of realignment work that moved functions outside of the City’s General Fund budget.

  The General Fund portion of the budget supports general municipal services, including police and criminal justice, fire and emergency medical response, streets, parks, libraries, planning, community and economic development, and a host of smaller specialized services aimed at neighborhoods, youth, the arts, historic preservation, and human services, among others. The General Fund is supported by general tax dollars, including sales, property, and public and private utility taxes.

• A $292 million Enterprise Funds Budget. These funds are supported by fees charged for services and include water, wastewater, garbage pick-up and disposal, building services, code enforcement, golf operations, and asset management.

  The budget includes modest 3.5 percent increases in the water and wastewater utilities rates to fund needed infrastructure upgrades. The proposal includes no increase in solid waste collection rates from 2012. In the end, a typical household will pay about $2.50 more per month, compared to the $12 per month increase the City had projected for 2013 prior to the change in administration.

• The rest of the overall budget is used primarily for Capital Projects, Debt Service, and other Special Dedicated Fund expenditures. These non-operating funds are reserved for capital projects such as major arterial street projects and public works upgrades, debt service on general government bonds, and special dedicated revenue and other funds, which include local law enforcement block grants and special quality of life projects. Capital projects alone, outside the utilities, total $63 million for 2013.

• The City also has “internal services” funds. These internal programs include fleet services, management information services (MIS), accounting, and risk management that charge fees to other City departments to cover the cost of their services.

Building the 2013 Budget

Affordability
Mayor David Condon committed to the “no growth” approach early in 2012 as part of his commitment to make government more affordable for citizens and businesses. Of note, the 2013 Budget did not include the expected annual 1 percent property tax increase and also limited utility rate increases to inflation to benefit our customers.

Households will pay about $2.50 a month more for utilities, compared with the $12 a month increase that the City had projected for 2013 before Mayor Condon took office. Importantly, we did not use reserves to balance our operating budget, living within our means.

Accountability
At the same time, our 2013 Budget maintains critical City services, and for the first time, provides a series of performance measure tools that account for the effectiveness of services and programs. In addition to the traditional line-item budget, we also delivered a programmatic budget in August that demonstrates how much it costs to provide each service and how those costs have grown in recent years, as compared to median incomes in our community.

This is all about measuring success in a way that resonates with our citizens. We will refine the programmatic format over the next year with a goal of making it easier for citizens to digest and track our results.

Alignment
The Budget also reflects reorganizations to gain efficiencies and reduce duplication and aligns some programs with partners outside of the City. Among other things, the City:

• Contracted with a non-profit organization to take over operations at the East Central Community Center, saving $130,000 annually.
• Initiated the transition of Spokane Area Workforce Development Council to a stand-alone non-profit with a close working relationship with the Community Colleges of Spokane.
• Worked with partners to develop a stand-alone Arts Fund that better serves the community.
• Transitioned Weights & Measures services within the City to the State of Washington.
• Completed a significant reorganization in the Business & Developer Services Division to improve service and streamline.

In all, the number of full-time equivalent positions in the 2013 Budget is down by 85, compared to the 2012 adopted budget. Eliminated positions were spread across all levels of our organization, including management. Overall, we reduced $850,000 in management salaries to invest in more front-line staff.

Those decisions were balanced with the priority placed on services by our citizens. In particular, the 2013 budget retains all current police officers. It is vital to avoid further erosion of direct police services to our citizens.

2014 Budget Work

We are already starting to work on our budget for 2014. We recognize that our citizens demand that we maintain—and even enhance—our services for a price they are willing to pay. They want greater value out of their City.

Our flat budget for 2013 achieved our goal of maintaining affordability for citizens, but it is clear that we need to invest more in direct services to our citizens. As we develop the 2014 Budget, we are focused on reducing overhead to invest more money into direct service delivery, without increasing the overall cost of City government.

We define overhead as non-productive employee hours, management and supervision tasks, wages that are above market, and internal services (like accounting and information technology needs). And, reducing these costs will be our charge during the coming year.

Attached are:

• 2013 Adopted Summary Line Item Budget – Jan. 1, 2013

• Executive summary of the Mayor’s 2013 Proposed Budget - Oct. 8, 2012
• Overview letter on the Budget from the Mayor – Aug. 1, 2012
• Mayor's 2013 Initial Programmatic Budget Proposal – Aug. 1, 2012

Citizen Input on the Budget

Our citizens weighed in on our approach to 2013 budget. More than 450 people filled out an online budget survey this summer.

• They affirmed the City’s guiding budget principles in large numbers; more than 85 percent agreed.
• About 58 percent supported the “no-growth” General Fund budget approach.
• And even more – 68 percent – liked the strategy in the utilities division that holds down costs and ties rate increases to inflation.

As we anticipated, citizens cared most about public safety services and particularly police. That result was mirrored in our telephone town hall meeting as well. When asked, citizens put the most money toward police followed by Fire. Utilities and Business & Developer Services, which includes streets, came next.

And, finally, citizens told us they want us to be thoughtful and careful in our approach to budgeting and services. They asked to think long term and understand how City services work together.

More information on the City’s budget is available by calling the City’s Finance Division at 625-6585.