RC Blog

Midyear budget cuts spare human services—for now

posted by Cydney Gillis on Monday, June 14 at 12:46pm

Mayor McGinn lowered the boom on city departments today, releasing a roster of $12.4 million in midyear budget cuts in an effort to close the general-fund shortfall that Seattle is facing in 2010 as a result of evaporating tax revenue.

The good news: The mayor is calling for $246,000 in cuts from the Human Services Department, but no actual service reductions are expected—at least not this year.

Next year, the city is facing a $56 million shortfall for which McGinn says he’s looking at cutting between 5 and 10 percent of the human services budget, along with 1-5 percent from the police and fire departments and roughly 10-15 percent from every other agency.

“Obviously, it’s the 2011 budget that’s going to be the challenge,” says Kip Tokuda, acting director of HSD. But, for now, “we’re going to get by relatively unscathed,” he says, by cutting back on travel and training without laying off any staff.

Overall, the city will cut a total of 13 people, representing 9 fulltime positions, as of July 20. Another 45 jobs will be left unfilled, including not hiring 21 planned new police officers—a move that saves $2.1 million but is sure to disappoint Belltown and Pioneer Square community activists who have called for more police on the beat.

The next biggest cuts will come from parks ($1.7 million) and libraries ($1.2 million). In addition to cutting the Parks Department’s travel and training budget—which raised controversy for now-resigned Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher—there will be reductions in park maintenance and closures or shorter hours at wading pools. Libraries will take hits in staffing for public services, custodial and technology and lose $500,000 in funding for buying materials.

The mayor’s midyear budget update also says the Seattle Department of Transportation came up $6.6 million short this year. One reason is that SDOT depleted its gas tax reserves earlier than planned in 2009. The other? Apparently, the department has spent a bundle on homeless encampment cleanups that, needless to say, it could have saved if the city had left the homeless alone.

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