City Finance Director Shelley Coleman took to the floor at City Hall on Monday night to present her preliminary 2015-2016 budget update to the City Council.
In 2009, she noted, year one of the Great Recession, the City of Auburn had $8.7 billion in assessed value. As might have been expected, over the next five years its assessed value continued to drop, so that by its nadir in 2013, it was $6.9 billion, more than a 20-percent-plus cumulative decline over that time span.
But things are finally looking up, Coleman said. In fact, 2014 has been the first year since 2009 that the City realized an actual increase in assessed value, an upward tick of about 5.5 percent.
“We anticipate in our budget talks about a 10-percent increase each year in 2015 and 2016’s assessed value. But I have been hearing that that’s really conservative, and that probably for next year it’s going to be 20 percent,” Coleman said.
City leaders expect to have the final numbers from King County by the end of September, and that they will include new construction.
The 2015 budget estimates $16.8 million worth of assessed value, about a $1 million increase owing, again, to the new construction in town.
Although in the last year the City levied a property tax of just under $15.8 million, Coleman said, typically it budgets about 1 percent less than that, acknowledging that some property taxes will always be uncollectible.
The 2015 budget levy estimates about a half a percent less in uncollectible revenues. The preliminary budget for 2015 estimates a property tax levy of about $16.8 million, a $1 million increase over 2014, Coleman said.
City leaders are proposing over the next two years to add six staff members, five for public safety purposes, one to deal with nuisances such as weed-wild lots. Those positions are as follows:
• A new police department record specialist, the first such hire in about 10 years.
• A major crimes detective.
• A bike officer to patrol downtown.
• An IT person solely dedicated to the police department to service technology at the East Main Street Police station.
• A code enforcement officer to complement the two Auburn already has.
• And an analyst to manage all the City-owned property.
“We estimate the new staff will cost about $600,000 a year, and we need to find an ongoing revenue stream to support those positions,” Coleman said. “The budget contemplates adding about $600,000 in our property tax levy to fund those positions. The City does have, at this time, about $20 million at the highest allowable levy, so at the end 2016 there’ll be about $2.8 million remaining of our banked capacity.”
To date, the Auburn City Council has met four times with staff and department heads, eight hours in total, to discuss the 2015-2016 budget. They meet again on Sept. 17 and 24.
After the City issues its preliminary budget document in October, it will hold a second public hearing on Nov. 17, at which time it should adopt the property tax levy. The final budget is to be adopted at the first council meeting in December.
