Ephrata adds officer in 2010

EPHRATA — Ephrata plans to add a police officer and a assistant fire chief as part of their 2010 budget.

The city council had its first public hearing on the $15 million 2010 budget during their last meeting.

“This year our objectives were to continue the waterline project, ?eliminate gang impacts, improve and maintain our aesthetic quality of our facilities, set aside funding for the parks master plan and improve employee retention and training,” City Administrator Wes Crago said.

The city increased its budget 17 percent. Crago said the majority of the increase is due to a Public Works Trust Fund loan for road and water pipe repairs and replacement.

“We have all three phases in some form or another still going on,” he said. “Take out the loan money from the state, it’s a 7 percent increase, which is almost entirely in the realm of sales tax and real estate excise tax.”

The increase in sales tax is an indicator the city’s economy is doing well, Crago said, the change is mostly due to more sales in Ephrata.

“Real estate excise tax, the sale and purchase of homes, is also a good indicator that the local economy is still, in Ephrata, relatively strong. Not robust, but certainly not flat,” he said. “There could be some impact that Walmart is a strong determinate in our sales tax and more people may be shopping at Walmart than normal.”

Staff was concerned about drops in state revenue and fuel taxes leading to declines in streets, library, cemetery, park and convention center funds in October. The staff balanced those funds with combination of eliminating new requests, increases in sales tax and property tax revenue and the staff waiving any wage increases for 2010, Crago said.

“We eliminated things that many departments wanted to have more of,” he said. “Our level of service to the community will not be different than 2009.”

The city is spending money roughly in the same percentages it receives it, Crago said, with the largest portion, 30 percent, being spent on streets and construction. Most of the money is being spent on the street and water pipe replacement project, which enters the third phase in 2010.

“Every fund has its own set of strings. What money goes in generally has to be spent in the fund,” he said. “So we receive money from the state on streets, you can see about 30 percent of our expenses are streets.”

About 28 percent of the budget is slated for utilities, and 15 percent is expected to be spent on public safety. Recreation is receiving 5 percent and facilities is 3 percent.

“‘Other,’ which is everything else the city does, is roughly 12 percent. About 7 percent for administration, which is a nice small number compared to other towns,” he said. “A lot of people are surprised how little, in the grand scheme of things, parks and buildings actually take to maintain.”

The largest increase in any of the city’s 35 funds was a 24 percent jump in the current expense fund. The fund pays for salaries for city staff. Crago said the raise is due to hiring a police officer to be an evidence technician and code enforcement officer and an assistant fire chief.

“The staff, including the union as a whole, agreed to forego wage (increases) for 2010 and council and the mayor agreed to forego all salaries for 2010 in order to afford being able to hire those people,” he said.

The city administrator previously said the new police officer position was suggested as part of a recent audit by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. The assistant fire chief position will help increase the amount of volunteers for the fire department.

“We think they are extremely important to our long term goals in the city,” he said. 

The street budget increased by 2 percent. Crago said this represents a significant amount of money coming out of the current expense fund to balance the fund.

“That represents an increase in maintenance costs, so we can maintain our new streets. We don’t want to get into a situation where we let our streets deteriorate as happened in 2000, 2002,” he said.

The park fund increased by 10 percent because of changes in minimum wage and the cost of materials. Tourism promotion, which is funded by the hotel and motel tax, increased by 19 percent. The fund is mostly used for the Basin Summer Sounds music festival.

“The cost of Basin Summer Sounds is almost entirely, well is entirely, borne by people from outside town staying in our hotels and motels,” Crago said.

The next public hearing on the budget will be held at the city council meeting on Dec. 2. The council meetings start at 7 p.m. at Ephrata City Hall, located at 121 Alder St. S.W.