City of Ephrata to cut two positions next year

EPHRATA - Ephrata is not filling two positions next year in hopes of maintaining its present services.

Mayor Chris Jacobson stated the city's 2013 budget represents "extreme efforts just to maintain 'status-quo' services.

As part of the cuts, the city isn't filling a street department position and a permit technician, City Administrator Wes Crago said. One position was left vacant after the person retired, and the other position was vacant because the person took another job.

"We're using our existing personnel in different ways than we have before," Crago said.

Crago presented the $12 million budget to the city council for the first of two public hearings on the budget. The budget is 2.6 percent higher than last year's budget, but Crago said the numbers are more nuanced.

"There are a lot of nuances of what went up and what didn't go up that have strongly affected the budget this year - falling state funding, the gains we have had are all local gains," he said. "There are new state rules for how we apportion staff salaries that have also dramatically affected us, and, as almost everyone in town knows, the historical rate of inflation is higher than our historical rate of revenue."

The council set three goals for the 2013 budget: To build reserves, to work with other agencies on gangs and implement a funding plan for all programs and projects for the next 10 years, Crago said.

"We've cut 26 percent over 11 years ... 26 percent is a lot of money to cut from a fairly small city that wasn't exactly overly fat to begin with," he said.

The city receives the majority of its revenue, 37 percent, from utility fees, followed by 14 percent from local taxes and fees, 7 percent from property tax, 8 percent from sales tax, and 4 percent from government services. The city transfers the remaining 30 percent of its revenue from one fund to another fund.

The city spends 35 percent of its budget on utilities, 24 percent on public safety, 8 percent on recreation, 7 percent on project debt and administration, 6 percent on facilities and 3 percent on streets. The remaining 10 percent is spent on other expenses.

The Association of Washington Cities is presently studying the typical amount cities collect for fees, Crago said.

"This is an average general fund, so just the general fund, which is public safety, administration, most of our facilities work," Crago said presenting a chart. "A typical city, this is statewide, government is about 10 percent, their utility taxes and business and occupation tax is about 20 percent, sales tax is about 18 percent, property tax, over a quarter, at 26 percent."

Ephrata's property tax in comparison is significantly smaller, Crago said. One reason is much of the business in the city comes from governmental agencies which don't pay property taxes.

"The other thing that tells you is we've had to siphon our property tax from the general fund where it would normally go and put it into our parks and our recreation systems," he said. "That's how we're keeping (the department) afloat and mowing our parks and that sort of thing."

The local taxes are quite a bit lower than other cities, Crago said. The city never had a business and occupation tax deciding it would hurt growth in the city.

"It does put a twist on our public safety services," he said.

The city's fines and fees are about one-tenth of what other cities typically receive, Crago said.

"We don't charge a lot of fees. We don't make a lot of fines. The services that we charge for are usually close to or slightly below what our actual costs are," he said. "These are obvious things that we're going to have conversations about."

The community priorities team will be looking at the discrepancies, Crago said. The nine-member team is expected to start meeting this week to begin assessing and prioritizing the city's needs. The team is also tasked with finding funding sources to pay for the needs.