Putting Whitefish budget in context

There’s been a lot of buzz this week about a proposed 63 percent increase in Whitefish’s budget, especially because the city’s number crunching for the coming fiscal year coincides with the construction of a new $14.6 million City Hall and parking complex.

The initial reaction for some may be that spending in Whitefish is out of control. Whitefish is proposing a 2.3 percent pay raise for its work force — more or less on par with what the county and neighboring cities are considering. And the city plans to add five more employees to the payroll, largely to accommodate a post-recession growth spurt.

There’s also the matter of a proposed increase in property taxes that could go as high as $97 a year for an average, $275,000 home in Whitefish. The state Department of Revenue’s reappraisal of property values is complicating the upcoming budget because Whitefish is expecting a 10 percent or greater drop in property values.

The truth of the matter is that there’s a reasonable explanation for this seemingly exorbitant budget increase, from $40.4 million to $65.9 million. As a guest opinion piece in today’s Inter Lake points out, 96 percent of the budget increase is from two large capital improvement projects: The City Hall/parking structure complex and the Haskill Basin conservation easement.

To Whitefish’s credit, both projects were shaped by a considerable amount of public input, and the city has the financial means to pay for both. The City Hall complex is being built with tax-increment revenue, while the conservation easement aimed at protecting the city’s water supply will be paid for with a voter-approved 1 percent resort tax increase.

Neither project will affect property taxes, although downtown businesses will shoulder part of the cost of the parking garage through a downtown Special Improvement District. We sympathize with Whitefish merchants as the resort tax is set to increase July 1 and a weak Canadian dollar has slowed traffic from across the border. Shopping local is more important now than it’s ever been.

It’s easy to criticize how a city spends money and builds new facilities. Just five years ago the estimated cost of a new Whitefish City Hall on the existing site was about $5.5 million. Now, with the parking structure, it’s $14.6 million. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of money.

The plan to rebuild City Hall downtown will never be embraced by everyone. Many think it should be built elsewhere in Whitefish to allow more room for retail development downtown. Once again, the truth of the matter is that the majority of city residents who weighed in when plans were being made wanted City Hall kept downtown.

Say what you want about Whitefish, the fact is that the City Council consistently gets community involvement before embarking on any project.

There’s no turning back now. Demolition of the 1917 City Hall building will begin later this summer and the new complex will be built. As Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld said, “The horse has left the barn.”

As for the budget, there are ways to trim back spending. It’s far from a done deal. We urge Whitefish residents to weigh in on the budget process and make sure their elected officials make fiscally responsible decisions.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.