City budget could bring layoffs, cuts in service

SANDPOINT — The City Council will be grappling with some difficult decisions as it brings equilibrium to the city’s $39 million budget.

The council is contemplating layoffs, reductions in some services and privatization of others as it tries to close an anticipated $410,000 gap between revenues and expenditures.

“This isn’t anything that anybody wants to do. This is difficult,” said Mayor Marsha Ogilvie. “It’s not a very happy time.”

The real estate boom of the mid-2000s prompted the city to add staff to keep pace with service demands. But the city retained the positions despite downturn in the market and the global economic collapse.

Moreover, fee revenue is down because of the sluggish economy and the city expects to receive less sales tax revenue from the state because Sandpoint has not grown as vigorously as other Idaho cities, city Treasurer Shannon Syth said.

The city leaned on its reserve funds to sustain the positions and did some internal reorganizing in the hope that revenues would be restored as the economy recovered.

“But it’s not happening so we need to make a change now,” Syth said.

Some council members are averse to ladling into reserves again.

“I am not comfortable doing this again this year,” Councilman Justin Schuck said in a letter to The Daily Bee.

Schuck is advocating for cuts to all non-essential capital improvement projects, budget cuts and reductions in staff.

“I do feel our economy is on a recovery track, but my glass ball doesn’t tell me when and I can’t justify holding out any longer with your tax dollars,” Schuck added.

Ogilvie said the city’s dependence on reserve funding was a cause of concern when she took office and she and other council members are determined to spare Sandpoint the fate of other cash-strapped municipalities such as Stockton, Calif., which recently went bankrupt.

“If we keep spending the money the way we have been — without making the cuts that are inevitable — that’s where we’re headed, and it’s not a pretty picture,” she said.

The council is slated to adopt a preliminary budget during its regular business meeting on Wednesday. A final budget will be adopted next month.

The draft budget currently includes the 3-percent tax increase allowed by state law, according to Syth.

Schuck anticipates three to five positions could be excised from the budget. He said the Planning and Public Works departments could each lose one staff member.

The Police Department’s municipal enforcement division could be dissolved, forcing patrol officers to take on animal-control duties. Parking enforcement, meanwhile, could be farmed out to the private sector.

“We’ve known this was coming,” said Syth. “We can’t sustain the level of personnel that we have without risking the future.”