Little comment made on Medical Lake 2016 budget

With no one providing comment, the Medical Lake City Council’s first public hearing of the city’s $9.52 million budget at the Dec. 1 meeting was brief — just under a minute.

According to information provided by the city, the 2016 current expense fund is projected to be at just over $3.35 million, with $2.41 million going towards departments and activities funded through the fund’s property tax and various fees revenue. The $2.41 million reflects an increase of $120,032 over 2015 spending.

City Administrator Doug Ross said the current expense spending would leave the city with a cash reserve of $940,830, which shouldn’t drop over the course of the year.

“Our starting and ending cash was down over $640,000,” Ross said. “To get it back up was a great job by staff.”

Ross said the city’s contract with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement remained at the 2015 level of $852,000 even though the SCSO is proposing to reduce it by $13,000. The pricing disagreement is over rent the county pays for using City Hall’s former police station, and Ross said they would probably propose some tradeoffs to resolve the dispute.

All other city department’s budgets reflected no changes in service levels. Medical Lake’s water and sewer fund is budgeted at $3.54 million while the garbage fund comes in at $753,934.

Budget document information stated the city continues to negotiate with the city of Spokane for an intertie to supplement Medical Lake’s water supply, with anticipated construction costs coming in at $500,000 should the negotiations be successful.

The council also approved the first reading of a pair of ordinances adopting the 2016 budget and setting the compensation and salaries for all city employees. The salary ordinance reflects a 3 percent wage increase for 2016 agreed to in union contract negotiations, and an increase in council member pay from $200 per month to $250 per month.

The council salary increase applies only to newly elected or future re-elected council members.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].