EDMONDS
Officials are contemplating asking voters in November for a levy that could cost $4.5 million dollars, and raise property taxes in Edmonds by nearly $270 a year for the average homeowner.
The levy’s aim — funding city operations — is not sexy, officials said. No new services would be added, no major purchases would be made.
Instead, $4.5 million represents the cost of avoiding either dramatic, city-changing cutbacks, or bankruptcy, Mayor Gary Haakenson said.
“This is not a ‘budget scenario,’” Haakenson told City Council members at the council’s Feb. 6 retreat.
To avoid bankruptcy, city officials pledged to create a list of city services that will be cut immediately if the November levy fails.
Yost Pool, general park maintenance and other popular services were on the chopping block as recently as November, and could be endangered again, said council president DJ Wilson.
If approved, the levy should stabilize city finances until 2016, finance director Kathleen Junglov said.
The final levy amount could still change for financial or political reasons, but right now city finances are dangerously unstable, officials said.
In the face of slumping sales tax revenues, last month Junglov reduced Edmonds’ sales tax projections for 2009 and 2010 by 10 percent. The reductions showed that by December 2010, the city will have less than $52,000 on hand — less than 2 percent of the amount recommended by state officials.
“The precariousness cannot be overstated,” Wilson said.
If a $4.5 million levy is approved, the city’s property tax rate will jump from $1.19 per thousand dollars of assessed value to about $1.77 per thousand, an increase of 49 percent.
The tax bill for an average $461,500 home in Edmonds would increase $269 a year, or about $22 a month, officials said.
While the immediacy of Edmonds’ budget crisis might be surprising to onlookers, the crisis itself is old news.
For years, officials have watched the slow creep of inflation, which has caused city expenses to grow more quickly than its property tax collections. By state law, property taxes can only grow 1 percent each year without voter approval.
Since 2005, for instance, city taxpayers have seen their property tax rate fall by about 20 percent, according to an analysis by Edmonds Councilman Ron Wambolt. Because many home values are up by 40 percent, however, most taxpayer bills are up, he said.
In Edmonds’ 2007 city elections, the budget dominated debate. It probably will this year, too, as three councilmembers are up for re-election.
All three — Wambolt, Michael Plunkett and recent appointee Strom Peterson — spoke to the levy’s necessity at the February retreat.
“I think the taxpayers of Edmonds would support $22 a month to sustain the basic elements of the city,” Plunkett said.
Peterson agreed. “This is not a sugar-coated levy. This is not a parks levy. This is not a happy levy where people can walk out of the voting booth and say, ‘We’re getting a new park,’” he said. “This is a serious levy. This is almost a tough-love situation, but I think people will understand that.”
Tough-love is not an easy sell, noted Wambolt, who called the levy necessary, but still “a difficult communications job” for all the candidates.
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com
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