Council steers clear of job cuts

By JOHN STANG/Daily inter Lake

On Friday, two Kalispell firefighters - a veteran and a junior one - went up a smoke-filled stairwell during the massive Mountain Villa Apartments fire to lead a woman to safety.

"They likely saved her life," Kalispell Fire Department Capt. Steve Herman said.

The younger firefighter would have lost his job under a now-stalled staff-cutting proposal to balance the city's general fund budget that is sliding toward the red, Herman said.

Roughly 30 firefighters and several police officers showed up Monday at a Kalispell City Council workshop on the city's troubled budget.

That's because the jobs of two current police officers, one police dispatcher, one animal warden and three firefighters - along with the equivalent of 1 1/2 administrative workers elsewhere - were on the chopping block in a draft budget reduction plan.

The thought of cutting firefighters and police officers bothered council members enough on Monday that no one wanted to trim people from the budget - at least for now.

Instead, they told Interim City Manager Myrt Webb to tackle a predicted $466,000 general fund shortfall by cutting only non-personnel expenses. The city staff already has identified at least $181,000 in non-personnel expenses that could be cut.

Then Webb is to update the council monthly on the budget troubles, which eventually might trigger a move to cut jobs. The next update will be on Dec. 8.

"If we don't do something about that $466,000, we're going to go broke," council member Hank Olson said. "This is pretty damn serious stuff. Lives are being affected. … We can't spend that $466,000 and hope [Webb] has a rabbit in his hat" to find future revenue.

Kalispell has implemented a hiring freeze, except for one greatly needed mechanic.

Also looming is the fact that if the budget troubles are not resolved soon, they will haunt the fiscal 2009-10 fiscal budget that will go into effect in seventh months, Webb said.

Kalispell's general fund is in a major crisis because expected revenues have not materialized, likely because of the slowed-down economy.

In September, the council adopted a $10.654 million general-fund budget after at least four months of slow, agonizing trimming.

The council avoided dipping into its cash reserves to balance the general fund. Kalispell's cash reserves were roughly $474,000 in September. A rule of thumb is that a city of Kalispell's size should have at least $1 million and preferably $1.5 million in cash reserves.

But revenue in the city's latest budget calculations has decreased by $466,000 for fiscal 2008-09, which began July 1.

Consequently, if the city government borrows from its cash reserves, it will be left with almost nothing in that rainy-day fund.

So Webb recommended $568,000 - instead of $466,000 - in budget cuts with the philosophy that no budget-trimming plan ever achieves every cut that it seeks.

That $568,000 included at least $181,000 in non-personnel cuts.

The proposed personnel cuts would hit the fire and police departments the most.

The fire department has 31 firefighter/paramedics who work in three shifts of eight to 10 people split between two stations. Webb's draft personnel cuts called for trimming three firefighter jobs.

The police have an authorized strength of 36 officers, but actually have 34. The draft cuts would trim the force's authorized strength to 32. One full-time dispatcher and a part-time animal warden also were proposed as job cuts.

The administrative workers who face potential elimination are two-thirds of a person in the city attorney's office, half of a clerk in municipal court and a third of a person in the city clerk's office. A vacancy in the city planner's office won't be filled.

Leaders and rank-and-file members of the police and fire departments pushed strongly against personnel cuts Monday, arguing that any trimming will seriously impair responses to fire, police and medical emergencies.

Firefighters cited Friday's Mountain Villa fire that gutted five apartments and damaged five more.

Mountain Villa is just outside city limits in the West Valley Fire District. However, the northern Kalispell station (staffed around the clock) was the closest fire station to that scene, and Kalispell firefighters were the first to arrive.

Upon arriving, they rescued two people trapped or stalled on the complex's upper floors.

That example plus some other police and fire stories helped convince council members to hold off personnel cuts in the short term - with the caveat that cuts may be inevitable if other factors don't eliminate the shortfall.

"It's going to take another source of revenue, or we won't be able to keep up," council member Jim Atkinson said.

City Finance Director Amy Robertson said no major construction projects loom in the immediate future to provide a significantly boost in property tax income.

Atkinson said a potential major revenue source would be a local option sales tax.

A proposal for this tax is expected to surface in the legislative session that starts in January. However, some Republicans - including most of the Flathead's legislators - vehemently oppose that concept.

"People have to talk to their legislators now and force the issue in the state Legislature," Atkinson said.