Polson city council hears budget woes

POLSON - In order to keep the budget balanced, each City of Polson department was asked to cut their budget lines, not dealing with personnel, by five percent.

Last Wednesday, at the Polson City Council's public meeting about the budget, each department head was able to explain their budget to the council.

The city is budgeted to bring in $7,369,277 and spend $7,275,247 during the next fiscal year.

Since the last meeting on Aug. 16, City manager Todd Crossett said a lot of work had been done on the budget. One example is the medical mills, something that won't be increased.

"That's a significant change," he said.

In order to stay ahead of the game, Crossett said the budget will have to be trimmed by about $60,000.

"We need to be able to find stuff to hold off on purchasing," he said.

The city is also looking to stay up on grant applications and continue to plan for the future as well.

Dealing with questions about payroll, Crossett said that the budget holds no cost of living increase for employees. There were some changes in the payroll line because people are taking on new jobs, for example the city clerk and city street superintendent are each taking on more job responsibility, warranting a raise in wages.

Kayla Parker will be taking over for Aggie Loeser as city clerk, but the city will not be replacing Parker's former position. Karen Sargeant has also been asked to expand her role.

The payroll has increased, but the city has a pool of money to work with, Crossett said.

"We set our budget once a year, but people come and go and get sick," he said. "Those things happen all year long. This gives us the ability to make corrections."

With all the cuts, Crossett said he wants to make sure that the cuts are realistic.

"We would save a lot of money if I cut the police gas budget in half, but realistically, we would be spending that anyway," he pointed out.

The city will carry the Polson library through the first half of the fiscal year, through December. The levy is in place, but the library won't see any money until that time.

The library board also has to get its own budget in order, along with a payroll system.

One question still remains: Is the library district going to have to pay the money it will receive during the first half of that fiscal year?

The question didn't have an answer, but is something the city will look into.

Library Director Marilyn Trosper said the next four months are going to be really critical for the library.

"The goal is to have secure structure to run in professional manner," she said.

As for the library's budget, Trosper said Polson ranks 11th out of 12 for salaries of staff compared to libraries in population size.

She also said the steering committee raised 14,000 for public awareness campaign and spent every penny of it, she said, and now it is her turn to put in the work.

The library received a state grant to hire a technology trainer to teach classes and also received greater Polson area grant for a second year in a row.

The head of each department was able to get up in front of the council to explain their budget, starting with Sargeant, of the Parks department.

With the parks season winding down, "you can tell we are getting tired," she said. The department finished the tree and park inventory and was even able to hire a forestry intern. She said the parks have been in pretty good shape and worked with the Polson Business Community to build the Armed Forces Memorial Staircase.

"Through Tali [Duford's] hard work, we got it done," Sargeant said.

The department will spend about $15,000 to resurface the playground at Riverside park, using a wood fiber product to replace the sand.

"Things held up pretty well this year," she said. "I've gotten a lot of compliments about the parks. When you have a recession, have a bad economy, people stay home. They stay within a certain radius of their house. They go to parks."

Sargeant said she cut eight percent of the budget, even though five percent is what was asked.

Water and Sewer Superintendent Tony Porrazzo went next and explained his portion.

"It's pretty straight forward," he said. "We have a lot of work going on."

With Mainstreet, storm drain projects, the TIGER grant and upgrades of Grandview and Hillside projects, plus day-to-day work, his department is crazy.

"I have a crew that is outstanding," he said. "We got a lot of work done this year."

The next step is to upgrade their pay.

"I'm losing them," he said. "My biggest issue is getting our wages where they ought to be."

Porrazzo said entry-level operator pays have increased over what his crew is being paid now.

Mayor Pat DeVries pointed out that 1.6 million dollars was budgeted for Porrazzo's department. Last year, the number was 2.7 million while the department used only 2.1 million.

"Spend less, earn more," Porrazzo said.

The department has put parks on water meters and is working towards getting readings from 100 percent of all meters in the city. There are 11 non-metered places, where as there were about 365 when he started the project.

"We're getting money we didn't get before," he said. "There were broken down meters. We are 300 meters away from being done with a total switch over."

This will help the city keep better track of its water and water usage and be able to charge for it properly.

Commissioner Ron Boyce asked about the spending for a new water treatment plant in the future.

"When do we start putting money away?" he asked.

Porrazzo responded that each year there has been money that is put away.

"In 2014, we'll have a nice chunk of money for that."

Building Inspector Ron Melvin explained his portion next, spending most of his time talking about storm water.

For the next year and a half, Skyline Drive will be a project for his department. The project will need a retention pond to get the storm water off Skyline Drive.

"We're looking at a 36-inch pipe down to ninth avenue," he said. "We might need to re address storm water. It is going to get extremely expensive for what the city needs to do for the TIGER grant."

One of the problems for Skyline Drive is its large project size.

"We have to deal with it now," Porrazzo interjected.

Two options are a retention pond where the skating pond is on West Seventh and Kerr Dam or a filtration system.

"We will look at both option's costs," Melvin said.

In the next 90 days, he will be looking at how buildings connect to Main Street.

Street Superintendent Terry Gembala talked about the street inventory and parking.

"We want to see what's there, what's not there, storm drains, sidewalks, all of it," he said.

As for the streets themselves, he said his crew is going to keep plugging away trying to patch the holes.

"We are looking at finding ways to fund the street department," he said. "Our budget is way down for next year."

"With two guys, you've done a lot," Commissioner John Campbell said.

Melvin said he is looking at buying a leaf picker, with a life span of 20 years, and wants to share the cost with the parks department.

It will help save wear and tear on the street sweeper that isn't meant to pick up leaves.

Building and Planning Official Joyce Weaver went next and said she talked with the Walmart contractor about five weeks ago.

An update is that Walmart has done an internal disruption to the project as they have a new district manager in the west. When a district gets a new manger, they don't necessarily take over the old manager's projects and usually start from scratch, leaving the super Walmart project's future hanging in the air/

The due date is June 2011 for an external extension permit. Weaver said she will learn more as time goes one.

Her budget, one that has been cut for years, "is very, very low."

She is working on the Polson development code and its budget has been cut in almost half. Also due is the Lake County Lake Shore document.

Fire Chief John Fairchild was up next and said over the last 10 years, his department has been hit as well.

This year, he is up 72 runs up from normal already.

"I can't tell you what next year will bring," he said. "I don't have a crystal ball."

While trying to keep up with standards, some of the things holding the department back from keeping volunteers is the economy and not being able to send them to training and providing adequate equipment.

However, Fairchild still said he loves his job.

"I have the best job in the city," he said. "I get to work with volunteers and I get to drive big red trucks."

Last, but not least, was Police Chief Doug Chase, who may have the bragging rights to the biggest portion of Polson's budget.

"We couldn't actually come up with enough paper to print Chief's budget" Crossett joked.

With being asked to return a minimum of five percent it meant buying new equipment was placed on the back burner.

"But, believe me, they are still simmering," he said.

Chase said he wants to replace laptops in patrol vehicles to ones that are able to access the National Crime Information Center, so officers can run license plates.

Even with that wish list, he was able to return $24,000 to the budget.

"We are happy to do that as part of the team," he said. "We are fortunate we didn't have a motor or transmission failure. It was about $6000 to fix last time."

Some of the officers' cars on are borrowed time, Chase said. Three cars are in excess of 1000,000 miles and Chase's is at 80,000. Next year, the department is looking to replace three of them.

"We're pushing the envelope," Chase said of the aging vehicles. "And it becomes a safety issue. We are going to buy a new vehicle."

The new one will cost $25,000 for the vehicle itself and $9,000 for equipment."

"We know times are tough," Chase said. "We are all going to fight for our departments and we are going to fight as a team."