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I-695 passage would force city layoffs
I-695 Passage Would Force City Layoffs
Published in the Herald-Republic on Wednesday, September 29, 1999
By WES NELSON
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
Under state law, Yakima city officials can't tell you to vote against Initiative
695.
But they're not holding back on how a ballot measure to repeal the 62-year-old
motor-vehicle excise tax would affect city programs.
More than $1.4 million in MVET funding the city has budgeted would be wiped
out if voters approve I-695, City Manager Dick Zais said. That would translate
into layoffs in both the police and fire departments and in the city's municipal
court system.
As a result, city department heads are bracing for tough times. The city cannot
take a position on the initiative, but it has issued what it's calling a fact
sheet.
"What it tells is what the MVET tax means to Yakima -- what it pays for, how
it's used," Zais said.
Zais said the initiative, if approved by voters in November, would require
a public vote on all tax, fee and rate increases proposed by state and local
governments. That means an election would have to be held on everything from
Yakima Transit fares to dog license fee increases, he said.
In all, the city has more than 100 different fees, rates and taxes.
Currently, the Yakima City Council approves utility rates and program fees.
The measure also threatens nearly $7.5 million that Yakima Transit hoped to
receive over the next four years through Referendum 49, which was approved by
voters last fall.
The referendum shifted MVET funding from the state's general fund to a motor-vehicle
fund to pay for $2.4 billion in highway and bridge projects statewide. It also
enabled Yakima to receive MVET funding for Yakima Transit, the city's public
transportation system, without having to create a regional transportation system.
Voters countywide rejected a regional system in 1994.
While Yakima Transit doesn't have those funds in its budget now, several other
city programs do rely on MVET funding.
The loss of that, coupled with a $300,000 decrease in the city's sales tax
revenue, worries city officials, who have implemented a hiring freeze and who
were already looking at an across-the-board 2 percent reduction for the proposed
2000 budget, Zais said.
"Every department is affected," Zais said of a $1.4 million chunk split up
three ways.
The largest piece -- $844,465 -- now goes to the police department, followed
by the fire department's $422,521.
The police department would lose seven officers and three police-support positions.
The department's projected loss includes $281,000 to operate its jail.
The city's municipal court system also would take a hit by losing $95,145 for
a prosecutor's position and a domestic-violence program. Another $63,875 for
two municipal court clerk positions would be lost.
The fire department would lose seven firefighters.
"It would be devastating to our fire department," Fire Chief Al Gillespie said.
"We'd have to close a fire station."
The city has five stations, although one along Fruitvale Boulevard is not in
operation.
Zais and other city officials said budget cuts may not occur in proportion
to how the money is currently distributed. The Yakima City Council will have
the final say on contingency plans now being developed, Zais said.
"The city is still working on a contingency plan as to how any cuts that may
come out of this will be divided up among the various city departments," police
Chief Don Blesio said.
Zais said he's not comforted by reports that approval of I-695 would repeal
the 1937 prohibition on a property tax applied to motor vehicles. No one knows
how much money the property tax would raise, he said, nor if the state would
even give it back to the city.
The potential loss of MVET funding for Yakima Transit would kill any hope of
restoring bus service on Saturdays and holidays, former Transit Manager Bill
Schultz said.
Yakima Transit has already streamlined some of its operations by going with
less expensive shuttle-type buses, eliminating one bus route and tightening
eligibility requirements for Dial-A-Ride, a service for the handicapped that
the city contracts out to Access Paratransit, a private company.
