The headline on the Seattle Times piece about the Council’s recent letter to the Mayor regarding long-term solutions to homelessness and street crime was unfortunate. (“Council strikes back….”)  It fit the easy frame of conflict between the Council and Mayor which excites people.  Among the local politicos internet browsers and apps go into high rev when a new accusation or slight makes the news.    Bickering, though, doesn’t make for great dialogue, and I doubt it will make for great policy or budget decisions.

Despite his repeated accusations last week that the Council didn’t pass a balanced budget for this year, the Mayor knows that budgets are built on best predictions.  Later this year, the moment after he snaps shut his budget proposal for 2011, the revenue projections upon which it stands will go stale.  He’ll finalize his budget in September based on predictions for how revenues will run through the end of this year and through the next. Council will receive an updated revenue forecast in November just before we vote on the 2011 budget. If staff do their job extremely well and if we’re lucky, the recession truly tails off and tax revenues hold steady and start to climb a little.  For all our sake, I hope that’s what happens and not the alternative.

None of us will enjoy the months to come as we wrestle with which necessary or beloved program to cut and which staff to give pink slips.  The gap this year is a roughly $12 million, a number you can get your head around which is a really weird thing to say given that it’s 12 MILLION DOLLARS.  Really the only reason you can get your head around it is because of the other number next to it.  That would be $50 million, the estimated gap between the revenues we think we’ll see in 2011 and the estimated cost of doing all the things we do now plus rises in health care costs, negotiated wage increases, and commitments we’ve made (like hiring more patrol officers).

The Mayor and Council will make very unpopular budget decisions this year. We have to find a way to talk and debate with each other productively.  We’ll prep ourselves with two public hearings this week and next on the budget and civic priorities. The first one is this Wednesday, 5:30 p.m., at the New Holly Gathering Hall in Southeast Seattle near Othello Station.  The second will be Wednesday, May 4, 5:30 p.m. at the North Seattle Community College cafeteria.  You’ll have the Mayor and Council together at these meetings. Here’s to hoping the news out of these meetings relates to the budget and not to bickering.

Posted: April 26th, 2010 under Random