Salt Lake Valley cities look at budget cuts with sharp eye

MIDVALE — This small city in the heart of the Salt Lake Valley is changing its budget outlook to reflect what could be years of hard times.

Already, the city has laid off nine employees — including two police officers — and plans to ask for two-day furloughs from the rest. Yet another vacant police position will not be filled, and positions in building inspection, administrative assistance and public works have been eliminated.

The goal is to cut $380,000 from the budget, city manager Kane Loader said.

"It's probably the worst budget that I can remember as far as trying to bring the numbers together," Loader said.

Over the past two years, sales-tax revenues have been down about 20 percent, he said. In discussions between the city administration and its elected officials, the decision was made to decrease ongoing expenses rather than use "Band-Aid" funds as one-time fixes, as was done in 2009.

Originally, all travel and discretionary funding were cut from the 2010-11 budget for a projected savings of about $900,000. However, the City Council wanted to restore partial funding for things like the city's Harvest Days festival so the function is not lost completely, Loader said.

"They may have to get some outside funding," he said.

Other small cities also are suffering with drastic drops in sales tax revenue, but some, like Holladay, are so small that they can't afford to cut staff.

"We're sucking air. We're sucking bottom, just like every other city," said Holladay city manager Randy Fitts. "It's just so hard to predict."

Besides a 21 percent drop in sales-tax revenues, Holladay also is suffering from decreases in franchise taxes, class C road funds and municipal telephone taxes.

The east-side bedroom community has not experienced a year-after-year increase in monthly tax revenues since September 2008, Fitts said.

"(The budget) will be cut to the bone this year," he said, adding that elected officials are not looking at a property tax increase. "I think that we need to demonstrate to our city that we're cutting as much as we can."

Similarly, Cottonwood Heights is not looking at any tax increases but has had to cut back in several areas, according to Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore.

In West Valley, Utah's second most populous city, layoffs and furloughs already have been implemented.

In most Utah cities, tentative budgets are due in the first week of May. Thereafter will follow a series of public hearings before the respective councils adopt the final budgets before July 1. If a city decides to ask for a property tax increase, the only revenue stream over which it has control, the budget process could continue into the fall.

e-mail: rpalmer@desnews.com