Syracuse seeks input on budget, taxes

SYRACUSE — Think hard. How would you trim $606,000 from the city budget?

Keep in mind that anything you eliminate means a decrease in city services.

Cut down police or fire department hours, and response times go down while homeowners' insurance rates could go up.

Don't maintain roads for a year and watch them deteriorate even faster.

Cut employees and expect their co-workers to shoulder extra workloads.

Or raise property taxes an average $82.50 a year to keep up the current level of service.

Or there could be a combination of cuts and a tax increase. The Syracuse City Council is looking at all these options.

But the council and city staff want to hear from residents, and they're hosting a series of cottage meetings at local elementary schools.

Thursday was the second of four meetings, bringing the total attendance at the first two meetings to about 40 residents, hardly the showing expected for a topic involving a possible property tax increase.

City administrator Rodger Worthen and finance director LaMar Holt laid out the city's cards for residents during a presentation that traced how the city has landed in its current situation.

The city's population has skyrocketed, Worthen said, from 9,800 in 2000 to more than 24,000 today. The police department and public works have more than doubled.

During that time, sales taxes were expected to increase because of commercial development in the city, but revenue hasn't come as quickly as was hoped, he said.

The city is also being hit hard, Holt said, because revenue is way down in another area.

In 2005-06, the city had more than $5 million to spend from impact fees.

"We lived off of that money," Worthen said.

In the coming year, the city expects to have around $500,000 in impact fees to spend.

To reduce spending, the city has already cut its 4 percent 401(k) match for employees, the City Council has reduced its pay by about 10 percent, or $4,400, a hiring freeze is in place and employees will not receive bonuses or cost-of-living adjustments.

The city has cut more than $430,000 out of its budget over the past 18 months, but still has $606,000 to go, Holt said.

Cuts could be made in employee salaries, but that would likely undo a tax increase the City Council approved in 2006. That tax, a 48 percent, or $52.93-a-year increase on the average home, generated $392,000 to boost employee salaries to keep workers from taking jobs with other cities.

The city was becoming the training ground for Davis County, Worthen said, because wages weren't competitive.

Worthen said he wanted the city to be transparent in discussing its financial woes with the residents, which is why he and other staff members suggested going into the community.