Monday, November 15, 2004

An open letter to Spokane’s leadership…

How does one make sense of the proposed cuts?

To begin, let’s talk round numbers and a simple premise. A round number - there is going to be a 10 percent cut to the city’s overall budget. A simple premise - our citizens and leaders agree that public safety is at the top of the list of what a city’s budget should do for its citizens.

OK, so city leaders know how much they need to cut, and they know what city functions are important to our citizens. Now, they can do one of two things, they could cut an even 10 percent from every department in the city, or they could weigh the cuts in response to what citizens desire from their government. Correspondingly, less than 10 percent would be cut from fire and police services.

But what the city has proposed is, indeed, a puzzling third option. Instead of a 10 percent cut (or less) to Fire and Police, they have more than doubled these cuts - contrary to what citizens want.

And when you do the math, the results are interesting. By cutting 20 percent, and then some, to the departments that citizens want preserved or even bolstered, it enables less than 10 percent to be cut from departments citizens deem not as important – if any cuts take place in these departments at all.

City leaders, if you are going to ignore the Priorities of Government survey, fine. But, don’t go in the opposite direction of its findings. Let’s just have a 10 percent cut across the board in every department in the city’s budget. Don’t subsidize non-essential departments by taking from those deemed essential. It doesn’t make sense. It goes against the wishes of the people, and it’s not good government.

John Griffith
Executive Board, IAFF Local 29

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