Mukilteo braces for budget cuts

MUKILTEO — By making do with old Tasers and current salaries, officials here are hoping the city’s big bank account will help it avoid job cuts despite its worst budget crunch in years.

Plunging sales-tax revenues are to blame for a $1.7 million general-fund deficit projected for 2009. That’s 14 percent of the budget.

The City Council is expected to vote tonight on nearly $1 million in cuts.

Running a deficit in this economy might be necessary, but it is dangerous, said Councilman Kevin Stoltz.

“The fact is that we are spending more than we are taking in,” he said. “If we are running a deficit, we need to be thinking about that all the time.”

In January, the city had $6.4 million in its general fund. It also has a $1 million rainy day fund it could tap if necessary.

Stoltz wants the city to consider delaying expensive projects like Mukilteo’s new community center, its planned annexation south of city limits or its dream of purchasing parkland in Japanese Gulch.

Instead, the $1 million in proposed savings comes from canceling, trimming or delaying city services such as crime prevention programs, or putting off expected employee raises and new hires.

Some planned purchases, like new Tasers or various consultant contracts, are also being delayed.

Quick action should eliminate the need for employee furloughs, a move other local governments have turned to, Mayor Joe Marine said.

“It is not like the ship is sinking,” he said. “It’s just a matter of scaling back and putting off things we’d like to do. It’s being prudent.”

Mukilteo’s tales of financial woe are familiar to those of governments across Snohomish County and Washington state, where cutbacks are increasingly commonplace.

The causes in Mukilteo are familiar, too.

The city’s sales tax revenues plummeted 60 percent year-to-year in January. News has been better since then, but finance director Scott James still thinks sales tax revenues will drop 25 percent this year.

The steep drop has required the city to adjust course now, he said. He hopes this is the last time Mukilteo will need to make cutbacks this year.

“We knew (the economy was troubled) when the budget was adopted, but we didn’t realize that it was going to take such a severe dive,” James said. “Now we’re saying, ‘OK. The economy has tanked.’”