PORT ANGELES — City Council members continued their foray this week into 2016 budget priorities and potential cuts amid hints that the budget deficit may shrink thanks to an improving economy.
Council members at a work session Tuesday concentrated mostly on police and fire services in considering 35 potential cuts in expenditures identified as low priority by the city’s eight department heads.
The discussion mirrored the focus of a March 17 council “listening session” during which they sought the priority-setting views of the public.
At that meeting, most of the speakers cited preservation of public safety programs and personnel as their highest concern.
The next task for council members is to score programs based on their importance by March 30.
Their scorecards will be made available to the public and will be discussed at a marathon City Council meeting set from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. April 23.
City Manager Dan McKeen set the stage for the 70-minute meeting Tuesday, which was attended by three members of the public, Mayor Dan Di Guilio and council members Brad Collins, Dan Gase, Lee Whetham and Sissi Bruch.
They discussed eliminating prosecution of minor offenses such as driving while license suspended and shoplifting items of less than $750 in value.
Police Chief Terry Gallagher said merchants were open to changing the prosecution of shoplifting.
“The prosecution of shoplifters on cost basis does not make sense,” Gallagher said.
City Attorney Bill Bloor said most items that are shoplifted are valued at less than $100, adding that city officials have begun talking to merchants about reducing enforcement.
Bloor had listed the elimination of one of his office’s two civil attorney positions on the priorities list.
“Everything we [do] for the other departments, including the City Council, would slow down considerably,” Bloor said.
Gase asked about the impact on crime if the city eliminated $46,350 for Health and Human Services.
McKeen said council members may have to choose between health and human services and other programs.
“The question for me is, is this where we put city tax dollars?” McKeen said.
“We need to look at ourselves before cutting services to residents,” Whetham responded.
“We have not drilled deep enough into the eight departments.”
The low-budget-priorities list and the scoring system council members will use to grade them are available at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-priorities.
The city is losing at least $360,000 a year in utility taxes from Nippon Paper Industries USA’s indefinite shutdown of one of its two paper-making machines beginning last December.
Mill Manager Steve Johnson said Wednesday he does not expect the machine to be restarted until at least the second half of 2016.
“My recommendation to [the City Council] is to plan for the worst and work to make it better,” Johnson said.
A revenue boost for the city is not likely to come in the form of increased fees or taxes, Di Guilio said, adding that citizens have reached their limit on how much more they can spend.
“I’d like to find some relief,” he said.
McKeen said at least some of the projected deficit for 2015 may be covered by increased revenue in other areas.
Byron Olson, city chief financial officer, explained Wednesday that some of the revenue from sales taxes and property taxes for October, November and December 2014 is trending higher than anticipated when the 2015 budget was completed.
He would not say to what extent the picture is brightening.
October’s collections were received in January and November’s collections in February.
Olson is still waiting for the tax collection for December.
“I’m not willing to bet the rest of the year on just January and February,” he said.
“Nippon is just one of a variety of factors.
“Things continue to shift each and every day.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.