Puyallup Council to Review 2013 City Budget

Puyallup interim city manager Bill McDonald has presented the city council with his recommendation for a balanced budget in the 2013 fiscal year. Recommendations in the budget include increasing utility rates and recreational fees next year to boost city revenue.

This month, the Puyallup City Council will review the budget in three separate workshops on Oct. 9, Oct. 23 and Oct. 30. The Council must approve a budget by Dec. 31 at the latest, but will likely approve the budget in November.

Read the preliminary budget in its entirety by clicking on the PDF attached to this article.

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In the document, McDonald calls the budget “conservative,” with the budget balanced by reducing city costs.

“In my view, this can become an unhealthy budget practice which is also not sustainable,” McDonald notes. 

At $35.5 million in expenditures and transfers, 2013’s budget is $1.7 million (4.7 percent) less than the 2012 adopted budget of $37.2 million.

The total budget for the next fiscal year is $93.9 million, which is $6.4 million (6.9 percent less) than the 2012 adopted budget.

To increase city revenues, McDonald recommends the Puyallup Council to consider increasing utility rates by 2.8 percent, indexed to the rate of inflation. This would help provide long-term infrastructure repair and replacement, the document notes.

McDonald also advises that the council consider increasing fees for recreational programs in town, to improve the revenue coverage ratio. He also recommends increasing the cemetery and Pavilion rates so these programs can move closer to covering their costs of operation.

Staffing changes in the budget include a reduction of 10.5 positions and leaving three vacant city positions unfunded. Those positions include keeping vacancies in the city’s legal department, police force, public works and parks.

The city’s property tax rate is projected to continue gradually climbing back up after a huge dip in 2010, but the primary assessed valuation indicates a decrease of about 10 percent in assessed home value city-wide, says the document.

The increase or decrease in each taxpayer’s individual property, however, will depend on how much their property value has changed in relation to the city-wide average. The estimated regular levy rate is at $1.87 per thousand assessed value – that means for a house valued at $200,000, the city’s regular levy amounts to $375 per year.

What do you think of this projected budget for 2013? Tell us in the comments.