SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane's books are balanced -- technically, according to council member Michael Cathcart.
"It's easy to say this budget balances technically, legally, it does," Cathcart said Monday night. "But it's not truly sustainable. Because when you look at the next year, it's no longer balanced."
Cathcart was one of a number of city council members who expressed hesitancy and frustration over approving the 2024 budget during Monday's meeting.
"This was not my favorite. This was a bad one for me, okay?" said council member Karen Stratton. "I hope that next year, there'll be better working relationships internally to start earlier and include more people and get out there in the neighborhoods together."
Council largely adopted a proposed budget put forward by Mayor Nadine Woodward, which included using 55% of the city's general fund allotment for public safety.
Spokane's police department will get the largest budget boost in 2024 with an increase of nearly 17% from that fund. The $12 million increase will put the department's funding at $85 million.
"There's not a single thing I hear more often than public safety. So it should be the largest part of our budget and frankly, it's not large enough," Jonathan Bingle said.
Council did tweak some of the mayor's financial proposals for police, namely how much of the city's traffic calming infrastructure fund will go to the department.
Woodward had requested $2.8 million from the fund to go to SPD, half to set up a traffic enforcement unit.
Council resolved to only allot $!.8 million of the traffic calming fund to create a four-person traffic enforcement unit.
"The intent is traffic calming. That's specifically the intent of the ultimate spend and to stand up an actual traffic unit, which we've not had for a while," Cathcart said.
There are guardrails with this change to make sure the money is being used to reduce speeding and other traffic violations. The police department will not be given the money outright.
"So we need to see those dollars and those units are actually being used in the way we're asking them to be used and when they do that, they can get reimbursements from this fund," Bingle said.
The budget for the fire department did not see such a generous increase.
The nearly $47.6 million budget for the department is only 1.8% larger than the year prior. Parks, courts and legal, and community and economic development all saw larger increases from the general fund allocation.
Lori Kinner, council president, urged members of council who will remain next year to focus on funding other elements of public safety, which she said include parks.
"Our firefighters telling us that their equipment is 20 and 30 years old, that's a problem that has to be addressed," she said. "Kids need something to do. And if they don't have something to do, they'll make up their own list of things they want to do. And it's not necessarily what you think they should do. So be broad-minded about what public safety entails. Start early, be collaborative, the new administration and involve the public early, because that's the one thing that I think we failed to do."
Other council members also expressed frustration the budget discussions were left until the end of the year, saying it gave them little time to address some complex challenges. One of the largest challenges facing the incoming council is a $20 million gap in the 2024 general fund.
Cathcart, Stratton, and other council members urged the incoming administration under mayor-elect Lisa Brown to start budget discussions earlier, like in January, and engage the public more.
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