Doing more with less

The worn desk and cluttered, unadorned office at the back of the Medical Lake City Hall mirror the condition of the town that City Administrator Doug Ross manages: frugal.

The city itself, long stuck at a population hovering around 5,000, according to U.S. Census data, might serve as a case study in how a small, tax-constricted municipality manages to continue serving its citizens on a carefully balanced shoe string budget.

It’s all a tight and often-misunderstood balancing act, Ross said in a wide-ranging interview on Friday, Jan. 4.

“I understand that people think we do things differently. We don’t,” Ross, dressed casually in blue denim jeans and a stripped polo shirt, said. “We do things within our means. And if that looks different, then fine, let it be.”

Ross noted that, unlike the trend with many other municipalities, the city has no debt obligations.

“We have no debt here. None,” Ross said.

The only taxes imposed by the city are utility taxes associated with city-managed water and sewer systems, and a voter-approved, six year emergency services levy, renewed as of Jan. 1.

Times have changed under Ross’s long tenure. Where there were five city department heads when he was first hired by the city as an urban planning intern in 1993, today there are three.

Today, nearly everyone does double duty.

The city currently has 19 full time employees and three department heads. One, volunteer Fire Chief Jason Mayfield, isn’t full-time, but is instead paid a stipend to manage the city’s volunteer fire department.

Finance Director Karen Landford doubles as clerk for the City Council.

And in addition to his duties as city administrator, Ross also serves as the city planner, public works director and, although the city has a parks and recreation coordinator, as director of the city’s parks and recreation department.

“That’s how we survive,” Ross said.

And there’s little chance things will change anytime soon. The city’s population and its income base will likely remain static for economic, geographic and resource reasons, according to Ross.

The primary limitation to growth is the city’s four wells that offer a limited number of hookups, only 10 of which are currently unaccounted for. Such are the perennial water issues that constrain Medical Lake’s potential residential development.

Still, even if the city suddenly had 500 residential water hookups available, its tax base wouldn’t necessarily be affected. Why? The readily close and competitive availability of services and shopping opportunities close by.

Spokane’s Division Street exit and downtown urban shopping are a 20-minute drive from Medical Lake. Nearby Airway Heights is rapidly expanding, offering more and more shopping and services.

“Do you think people are going to stop going to Walmart? To Lowes? Do you think Walmart will build a store here?” Ross said.

Businesses exist to make a profit, noted Ross, and if they thought there was money to be made they would invest in Medical Lake, which has plenty of commercially zoned land available. But such investment is, so far, nearly non-existent.

That might change if available goods and services were a 45-minute drive from Medical Lake, suggested Ross. But they aren’t.

A common economic adage states that price is king. The city’s proximity to competitive shopping opportunities in surrounding communities, including the commissary and exchange at Fairchild Air Force Base that serves the city’s large active duty and retired veteran population, all conspire to keep tax dollars out of Medical Lake.

Ross recalled the development of the Fox Hollow and Fox Ridge subdivisions beginning in the mid-90s. What he didn’t recall was any associated business growth that resulted from the influx of new homes.

“I’m willing to bet there are people who never turn right,” or westbound onto State Highway 902 from those subdivisions to shop in Medical Lake, Ross said. Instead they head north and east to shop.

“Where are they going to get the things that they can get there, here in Medical Lake?” Ross asked.

And so the more things change — elsewhere — the more they stay the same in Medical Lake.

Yet, even as Ross lamented the money that isn’t flowing into the city’s general fund coffers, he was effusive about the Medical Lake cottage community lifestyle.

“Medical Lake is a place where people come to live and raise kids, to recreate,” he said, even if they shop elsewhere.

And despite the ongoing challenges the city faces, he also seemed to be OK with the present state of the city.

In the end, the government and employees of Medical Lake manage a carefully balanced yet tenuous equilibrium that, if the wrong item falls out of balance, “all of a sudden it becomes very difficult,” Ross said.

That equilibrium is struck by, in part at least, doing more with less. A trip to the men’s restroom for the staff at City Hall epitomizes that effort — the toilet stall doubles as a storage space.

Such are the management challenges of a cash-strapped city staff and government in the bucolic community on the West Plains called Medical Lake.

“We do this with 19 people and no money,” Ross said with a sense of pride, even as he praised city employees. “I think it’s pretty amazing what people do around here.”

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].