Internal task force recommends City cost savings measures

Fiscal Alternatives for Stability Taskforce (FAST) Report - May 18, 2009 (PDF)

An internal study group identified City deficit reduction ideas totaling more than $8 million in a report provided this week to Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike. The recommendations focus primarily on spending reductions, though a few describe options for increasing revenue.

Many of the group's recommendations, however, must be approved by City Council or another jurisdiction, or bargained with one or more of the City's eight employee unions, before they can be implemented.

Examples of the 34 recommendations of the Mayor's Fiscal Alternatives for Stability Taskforce include:

Delay the hiring of the Public Development Authority Executive Director;
Cancel mid-2009 salary ''bumps'' to eligible employees, and freeze salaries and wages for all employees in 2010;
Reduce General Fund subsidy of the Art and Children's Museum;
Charge higher admission and facility use fees to people who live outside Bellingham;
Cross-staff the Bellingham Fire Department's primary ladder rig to free personnel for other duties;
Install a limited number of automated citation cameras in school zones with high levels of infractions and intersections with the most accidents due to drivers running red lights;
Place a moratorium on the purchase of ''Green Power'' pending exploration of less costly ways to support City sustainability goals;
Reduce City employee benefit costs, such as by using less costly insurance plans with higher deductibles;
Incorporate the statutorily allowed 1% property tax levy increase and the City's banked property tax capacity into the 2010 budget to avoid further service cuts.

The Fiscal Alternatives for Stability Taskforce (FAST) included City department heads, managers and City Council members Stan Snapp and Gene Knutson. Pike appointed the group in November 2008 to find new ways of doing business that would provide sustainable, lower-cost approaches to meeting the City's mission.

Pike said he will review carefully the group's recommendations to determine steps that he will implement immediately, those he will study further, propose to City Council and/or employee bargaining groups for review and approval, and those he will reject.

"The report contains many intriguing and useful ideas, and I appreciate the effort and creativity FAST members put into their research and recommendations," Pike said, adding that he expects to announce his decisions about next steps for the recommendations before the end of May.

Bellingham Chief Administrative Officer David Webster, who led the task force, said the effort is one of many initiatives under way to help solve a projected $6 million deficit in the General Fund in the 2010 fiscal year.

"Unabated, this deficit is expected to mean between 50 and 75 additional staff layoffs on top of the 30 positions eliminated through other austerity measures since the summer of 2008," he said.

Webster reiterated that moving forward on the report's recommendations requires varying levels of decision-making authority, including items that can be initiated by the Mayor, items requiring Council or another jurisdiction's approval and those that must be bargained with one or more of the City's eight represented employee groups.

He said the FAST recommendations include:

$1,477,500 in cost reductions feasible by management prerogative;
$439,000 in additional cost reductions requiring Council or other jurisdictional approval;
$4,830,000 in cost savings that will require voluntary concession or negotiation by bargaining units;
$45,000 in new earned revenues executable by management prerogative;
$1,530,000 in one-time or ongoing revenues that will require Council approval

"Though most are not pain-free choices, FAST concluded that options exist to solve the budget crisis and largely avoid high numbers of layoffs, if management, policymakers and labor work together for the greater good," Webster said.

More Information:

City addressing financial challenges

Updated: May 21, 2009