By Jake Lynch

jlynch@sammamish-reporter.com

The City of Sammamish Employees Committee have agreed to take a pay cut, as the city struggles to deal with reduced revenue as a result of the downturn in economic activity.

By agreeing to the pay reduction, the employees will save the city more than $25,000.

Pay increases for city employees are tied to the legislated Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), which in turn is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), essentially, inflation.

According to Chairperson of the City of Sammamish Employees Committee, Jodee Bass, in previous years that figure has been anywhere between 5.8 percent and 1.2 percent.

“We’ve always received 100 percent of the COLA – this was just the first time that it happened to go south,” she said.

According to Finance Director Lyman Howard, this is the first time since the incorporation of the city that inflation has been a negative figure.

“This CPI, from June (2008) to June (2009), for the Seattle/Tacoma/Bremerton area was -.4 percent,” he said. “The employees’ willingness to take the cut based on that, I think, is pretty indicative of how much the employees care about the city.”

Bass said that a few weeks ago City Manager Ben Yazici asked the association to discuss the possibility of a pay reduction in line with the CPI.

“And we took a vote,” Bass said. “It was 100 percent in favor, but it was the vast majority.”

The pay reduction, if accepted by council, will take effect on Jan. 1.

It includes all 72 city staff, including department heads and the city manager, but does not include the seven councilors.

As Bass said, councillors “had not had the benefit of yearly increases tied to COLA.”

The employees’ pay will be one of the many things Howard will be discussing with council in November, as the city’s financial managers look at how they are going to maintain services in these times of diminishing revenues.

With the bi-annual budget for 2009/10 already set, Howard and council will be working on adjustments to this budget, things they are going to have to change as a result of circumstances they hadn’t envisioned.

The biggest of these is reduced revenue from property tax and development permits, as people stop buying existing houses or building new ones.

There is only a little the city can do to stimulate activity on this side of the ledger – in recent weeks they have made changes to the Municipal Code to grant developers a little leeway in the payment of fees, to try and encourage development.

On the revenue side, the city will soon consider what, if any, adjustments they will make to the property tax levy.

They are allowed to increase the levy up to 1 percent from the previous year.

Howard could not give any indication of whether an increase was likely, saying “it’s basically a policy choice,” a matter for the elected council.

“I would anticipate there would be some discussion of this, relating to the state of the economy,” he said. “In the past, council has been sensitive to tax payers.”

Howard said that the city would be working hard to “basically hold the line on expenses.”

To this end, Sammamish was one of a number of Eastside cities to sign a letter to the King County Executive Kurt Triplett asking that rates for contracted police services, such as those in Sammamish, be held at the same rate as last year.

Sammamish will also request that Eastside Fire and Rescue also forgo any increase in the charge for their service.

“And not do it through accounting gimmicks, which just aren’t sustainable,” he said.

Howard said that revenue on the capital works side “looks very thin.”

“We’re not seeing a lot of revenue from real estate excise fees, or impact fees. Houses are not changing hands, and builders are not building.”

A council study session on Sept. 14 would look at what improvements were possible as part the city’s 6 year transportation plan.

“Right now, we’re not going to be doing a lot of capital projects,” Howard said. “On the positive side, we also won’t be seeing a lot of the impacts (from new development), like increased traffic,” he added with some humor.