Is the sky falling? Longview Council, staff have 11th-hour discussions about how to balance the budget

Council member Kalei LaFave returned from an executive session — proposed by the interim attorney general to discuss the legal implications of the decision — but withdrew her vote to waive the tax.

“Many of us are new, and we weren’t here to shake things up and find all these deficiencies, and now we have to make all these decisions in the first eight months… I’m happy to withdraw my vote” , she said. “But I don’t like it.”

LaFave joined council members Ruth Kendall, MaryAlice Wallis and Angie Wean in voting on the budget balance with a week left until the deadline.

Before the agreement was reached, Interim City Manager Jim Duscha suggested that staff would work weekends to find the $1.4 million per year that would offset the 0.0005% B&O increase in 2025 and is estimated to bring in annually in 2026.

But three other council members didn’t move.

“The sky is not falling,” assured Councilman Erik Halvorson, who, to Duscha’s surprise, proposed the idea of ​​tapping into the general fund.

“In my humble opinion, the sky is falling,” Duscha said. “We’ve made that very clear throughout the whole process… That scares me to death about where we’re going now. “I really don’t know how to understand it right now.”

Despite the B&O and utility tax increases passed unanimously at the last meeting, the fund’s ending balance in 2029 is expected to be less than $1 million.

Another plea for a tax increase came from Jason Still, the Longview man who sued the city for alleged violations of his free speech rights.

He said he hates raising taxes, but the B&O hasn’t been raised since 1972: now is the time.

“The sky may not be falling now, but bankruptcy is part of the forecast,” he said. “We have to do something drastic because if we don’t, something drastic will happen.”

Before the final budget vote around 9:30 p.m., the interim city attorney proposed a board meeting to discuss the legal consequences of cutting the general fund up to a certain point.

Previously, Deputy City Manager Chris Collins said in a budget workshop that the city would have to issue an emergency declaration if the final balance of funds reaches less than 8%, which current projections show will happen by 2029.

Before her election, LaFave asked Duscha if police and fire departments could be left off the table in the updated budget without the B&O tax increase, to which Duscha said no; They are the largest departments in the city.

Collins shared the city’s revenue split at the start of the meeting, with 55% of the budget going to public safety.

Also previously, Parks and Recreation Director Jen Wills said that part-time council positions were eliminated from parks as part of the budget with the B&O tax increase. Without these employees, the park restrooms would not be cleaned on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, she said.

Halvorson, LaFave and Mayor Spencer Boudreau also voted against the previously agreed upon 3.5% utility tax increase in 2025 and 2026, but Kendall, Wallis, Wean and Councilman Keith Young voted in favor.

An increase in utility tax is different from an actual increase in the utility rate.

The rate covers maintenance and operations of the utility, while the tax can be used for other services the city provides through the general fund, the city reports.

Shortly before the meeting began, Halvorson, LaFave, Boudreau and Young also voted to adopt the city’s allowable 1% property tax increase (approximately $100,000) and allowable new construction costs and administrative reimbursement.

The remaining members pushed to take the 1%, with Kendall equating it to the salary of a city employee.

Halvorson said the council had already proposed too many tax increases and refused to add another.

It was at the Oct. 10 meeting that the council unanimously, albeit tentatively, agreed to increase B&O and utility taxes, securing the money needed to balance the budget.

Immediately afterward, Halvorson requested that the new roughly $1 million per year be used to fund five new patrol officers in 2025, now that a “healthy budget” is in place.

Collins said the request would cover the full $1 million, if not more.

Duscha said he “wouldn’t recommend this at all,” even though he is the city’s retired police chief after 42 years on the force.

“That shocked me a little bit,” he said.

The Nov. 5 vote also includes a measure to add a penny to every $10 sale in Longview to cover city police costs.

Longview resident Bruce Holway urged the council to be more deliberate and slow in making decisions.

Longview resident Michael O’Neill said the proposal to use the money for more officers seemed disrespectful to all of the City Council’s hard compromise work.

“We need more of this and less throwing of hand grenades at the last minute because you didn’t get your way,” he said.