Kalispell considers tighter public-safety budgets

Kalispell's government proposes spending $136,000 less on fire and police protection in fiscal 2010 than it expects to in fiscal 2009.

The Kalispell City Council discussed those proposals Monday at a workshop.

The combined police and fire budget for fiscal 2010 is pegged at $6.022 million, or 66 percent of the city's general fund.

The proposed fire budget is $2.308 million, a drop of about $25,000. The proposed police budget is roughly $3.17 million, a drop of almost $112,000.

For the police, this would fund 35 officers. But the department has only 33 sworn officers, with a hiring freeze in effect until a new city manager can review the situation later this year.

The department also needs an animal control warden, but has not found the money to hire for that position, Police Chief Roger Nasset said.

Police calls rose slightly from 26,584 in 2007 to 26,692 in 2008. Arrests increased from 1,896 in 2007 to 1,934 in 2008.

Robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts and vandalism have increased. Forgeries are roughly level from 2007 to 2008. Known drug offenses are dropping, although Nasset speculated that might be due to the department being short one officer for the drug task force.

The police force is seeking grants to increase its budget.

The fire department expects to budget for 34 full-time-equivalent employees in fiscal 2010, compared to 35 in fiscal 2009 and 39 in fiscal 2008.

But the fire department also is under a hiring freeze, and currently has 33 people.

The fire department - which also handles ambulance calls outside Kalispell -handled at least 4,500 calls in fiscal 2009 and expects to respond to 4,800 calls in fiscal 2010 .

It hopes to increase fire inspections from 80 in fiscal 2009 to 200 in fiscal 2010. Some overtime, replacing an ambulance and hiring extra people have been put on hold because of budget constraints.

The fire department also has an ambulance fund that contains revenue -usually insurance payments - for ambulance runs.

This fund provides 20 percent of the firefighters' salaries. All of Kalispell's firefighters double as paramedics.

Council members Bob Hafferman and Tim Kluesner want the city fire department to explore sharing resources -'such as water tank trucks - with surrounding rural fire departments.

Acting Fire Chief Dan Diehl said the city department has made "handshake agreements' with the chiefs of the surrounding fire districts to help each other out.

In the overall picture, the $9.1 million general fund is part of a proposed $45.8 million budget for 2010.

The 2009 overall budget is about $53 million. The big drop is mostly due to the city finishing a major expansion of its sewage treatment plant earlier this year.

Most of the city's budget is locked in with expenses matching revenues.

The only real wiggle room is in the general fund, which pays for much of the everyday operations and administration of the city.

The council is keeping an eye in its cash reserves, which ideally should be about $1.5 million. But fiscal 2010's predicted cash reserves are $141,281, compared to fiscal 2009's predicted reserves of $136,547.