Page 8 - Flathead Beacon // 5.20.2015

8 | MAY 20, 2015 NEWS FLATHEADBEACON.COM Whitefish City Officials Clarify
Just
Sayin’...
“We have no plan in Syria overall ... Our policy of doing it from afar, especially in the territory of Iraq by the operations alone is not working and it won’t work.”
U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Montana, criticizing the Obama administration’s strategy against ISIS during an interview on CNN.
“It’s tremendously sad. Dean was part of this community and had such an impact on climbing. He was a luminary and in the pantheon of climbing gods.”
Mike Gauthier, chief of staff at Yosemite National Park, on the death of Dean Potter, a rock climbing legend who was killed May 16 in a BASE- jumping accident in the park.
“It’s sad. He had such a huge, long career. It’s sad that we won’t be listening to him live anymore.”
Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger on the recent death of blues legend B.B. King.
Proposed budget increase due to large capital improvement projects
By TRISTAN SCOTT of the Beacon
News of a proposed 63 percent in- crease in Whitefish’s budget set off alarm bells in a community already grappling with construction of a high-ticket City Hall and parking structure project and a recent voter-approved easement that hikes resort taxes.
Those one-time capital improvement projects should not come as a surprise to voters, city officials say, and the budget proposal must be interpreted through the lens of a pair of large-scale developments that will not affect property taxes.
While the proposed city budget of $65.9 million is up $25.5 million from the past fiscal year’s budget of $40.4 million, the lion’s share – 96 percent of the budget increase – is due to a pair of one-time capi- tal improvement projects, the new $14.6 million City Hall and parking structure and the $8.5 million Haskill Basin conser- vation easement, neither of which will af- fect property taxes.
Without them, the overall budget per- centage increase would be 2.4 percent, not 63 percent.
City officials emphasize that the bud- get proposal is not an example of fiscal ir- responsibility, but rather, they hope – like the large projects the budget encapsulates – a product of public input.
“The city of Whitefish is fiscally re- sponsible with your tax dollars,” wrote Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld and City Manager Chuck Stearns in a recent let- ter addressing the budget concerns. “We do our best as city leaders to maintain the special qualities that make Whitefish the most desirable place to live, work and raise families. The mayor and city council will consider all opinions as they deliber- ate the Fiscal Year 2016 budget during the next three months. Please stay engaged.”
Whitefish City Hall.
BEACON FILE PHOTO
Uptick in Budget
M e
The City Hall and parking structure project has been under consideration as a priority for the city since adoption of the 1987 City’s Urban Renewal Plan and has been at the fore of public discussion for more than 12 years.
The Haskill Basin conservation ease- ment, which will permanently protect the city’s water supply, was extensively vetted publicly for more than two years, and re- quired voter approval in a special election in Whitefish.
It was approved by 84 percent of Whitefish voters in April.
Both projects have been crafted through yards of red tape and public in- put, and the city has the means to pay for both – through tax-increment revenue in the case of the city hall and parking struc- ture, and through a voter-approved resort tax increase of 1 percentage point, from 2 percent to 3 percent.
Still, the budget calls for an increase of 22.39 mills levied.
“The proposed FY16 budget was prob- ably the most difficult budget in over five years,” Stearns wrote. “Resumption of growth has put additional demands on staff resources and there were many pro- posals for new staff. Some I could recom- mend in this budget and some I could not.”
The proposed increase in property taxes is the sticking point for some resi-
dents, but the increase is complicated due in part to the state Department of Revenue’s reappraisal of property values, something the city cannot control.
Under a normal, non-reappraisal year with an average tax-base growth of 3.75 percent, the city’s proposed property tax increase would be approximately 4 mills, not the 22 mills proposed.
“What this boils down to is that in a normal year the city manager would be proposing a property tax increase of $17.26 on a home valued at $275,000 to maintain our current level of service. Be- cause of the state’s reappraisal process, if the $275,000 house does not decrease in value from reappraisal, then the city may levy an additional $80.35 in taxes to maintain the same level of service the vot- ers and citizens have been accustomed to and demand of city government,” the let- ter states. “The alternative solution is to cut services, but considering the city has not substantially raised mill levy tax rates since 2009, this reduction does not seem to be a viable alternative given five years of inflation that directly affects the city’s costs of providing services.”
A public hearing and approval of the preliminary budget is planned for either June 1 or June 15, with final budget ap- proval on Aug. 17.
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