Sammamish Council considers property tax increase

Published 4:41 pm Thursday, November 12, 2009

The City of Sammamish will consider a 1 percent property tax increase to offset an increase of more than $400,000 in fire and police contract fees.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Sammamish City Council, Financial Director Lyman Howard presented a draft of amendments to the 2009/10 city budget.

In the case of biannual budgets, a mid-period amendment is usually held to make adjustments resulting for unforeseen revenues and expenditures.

On Tuesday night it was revealed that those included not only the increase in the contracts of Eastside Fire and Rescue (EFR) and King County Police, but also a decrease in city staff wages, a fall in property tax revenue resulting from a decrease in assessed valuations, and a windfall of $525,000 from developer contributions dating back to before incorporation. That money is being used to fund a portion of the 244th Avenue connection.

At the beginning of his presentation, Howard referred to the city’s stated financial mode of operation, “to provide higher levels of service for lower levels of taxation.” That is a premise at the core of the city’s birth.

But the ability of the city to fund the level of service its residents expect is coming increasingly into question, a situation exacerbated by the fall in property values in a city so reliant on property tax revenue.

As the current and future councils give and take where they can to provide an appropriate level of service, one of the key battlegrounds will be the area of police service and fire service.

Council heard that the $62,000 additional funds requested by EFR is necessary to fix a mistake made by the department in the construction of its GIS modeling, a technical system it uses to plot station positioning and city locations.

The amended 2010 budget draft also includes $150,000 for a new police detective, part of a total increase of $351,000 for police service.

The council heard that there are about 130 misdemeanor crimes that go unsolved each year, due to a lack of manpower.

City of Sammamish Police Chief Nate Elledge was on hand to present the case for an additional detective to the council.

“There are about 50 vandalisms and 80 thefts per year, misdemeanor crimes that often go unresolved, and that affects the citizens of Sammamish,” he said.

Elledge said that while the police did have a few detectives, there time was consumed with investigating more serious crimes such as burglaries.

Councilmember Mark Cross spoke in favor of funding the detective position, adding that the city staffing level has been frozen at 70 for “more than a thousand days.”

However councilors Nancy Whitten, Kathy Huckabay and Michele Petitti had their doubts as to the prudence of such an investment at this time.

Referring to the decision of city staff to accept a pay reduction, in line with an annual cost of living decrease, Whitten said “it really bothers me that contract services are taking an increase, and regular city employees are taking a decrease.”

Whitten later said she did appreciate the need for a strong police service, but questioned the timing.

“I’ve spoken with people who have been robbed, people who have had their personal space invaded,” she said. “If they are told that we don’t have the resources to investigate those incidents, that a pretty significant no service.”

That the city is struggling to pay for a police force that satisfies the public safety concerns of its residents and council is a matter of real concern, prompting one audience member to remark “looks a lot like the crossover point,” referring to the point where, should the current financial model hold, operational expenses will exceed operational revenues, estimated by city staff to not occur until 2015.

“One of the reasons we incorporated was to provide a higher level of service,” Whitten said, but added she would like to see the employment of an additional officer deferred for a year.

Petitti reminded city staff that, once employed, the $150,000 for a new detective would be a continuing cost.

Huckabay said she agreed with Whitten, adding that “we are talking about raising the property tax by 1 percent – this is a difficult time. If we could delay hiring a police detective by at least one year, then we could tell our residents that we didn’t have to raise the property tax.”