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Cuts to popular services are averted in the budget approved Monday, but residents urged the council to begin the search for long-term solutions.
Eugene city councilors unanimously passed a two-year amended city budget Monday that uses a planned stormwater fee hike to narrow its $11.5 million shortfall and prevent cuts to popular local services.
But City Manager Sarah Medary — and members of the public who attended Monday’s meeting — told councilors it was time for the city to start serious work on long-term budget fixes.
“We recognize this is one step in a longer journey,” Medary said. “The challenges ahead, especially around long-term stability, will require continued partnership with you and the community, and we’re ready for that work.”
Added resident Jacob Trewe in the public hearing on the budget:
“What we need are dedicated funding sources, and in times of budget crisis, which we’re going to keep running into, not have the priority be to cut essential services.”
An 18% stormwater fee raise, which the council approved last month, freed up $4.7 million for the budget’s general fund — shielding the city from the most contentious cuts proposed in the amended budget in April, like reducing the downtown library’s hours and closing the Sheldon Community Center and Amazon Pool.
The cuts came after the council in February approved a fire services fee, which was anticipated to raise $10 million annually. But after a petition campaign spearheaded by the Eugene Chamber of Commerce forced the fee to the ballot, councilors started looking for other options.
Councilors didn’t discuss the fate of the fire service fee at Monday’s meeting, but said last month they expect to decide whether to repeal the fee — as opposed to letting it go to ballot — by mid-July.
The stormwater fee hike is expected to take place in August, about a month after the city’s next budget cycle begins.
Money raised by the stormwater fee increase restores the city’s years-long animal sheltering contract with Greenhill Humane Society and its two full-time animal welfare staffers.
It will also fund Eugene Springfield Fire’s alternative response planning chief, as well as funding for three full-time Public Works positions and $48,000 for seasonal and contracted staffing.
But it won’t completely close the budget gap, with Central Services and the Eugene Police Department losing funding for one and two positions, respectively.
The city’s Budget Committee also asked councilors and the city manager to find ongoing funding for programs like Homeless Services Program Transition, Downtown Clean Up and Beautification and Alternative Response Transition, which the budget currently covers with one-time funds.
Committee members also asked councilors to direct the city manager to investigate how to provide an alternative response service like CAHOOTS — which ended in Eugene early April — and find $2.2 million in funding for the program by the end of October.
Finding middle ground
While most speakers Monday praised the city’s efforts to create what was termed a “compromise” budget, not everyone was sold on the increase in the stormwater fee.
“It’s a tax,” said resident Danny Patch. “You use it like an ATM. You’re going to greed yourself to death.”
And while many residents Monday agreed the city needed to begin the hard work to bring the city’s revenue in line with its expenses, there were differences about how to do that.
Brett Deedon — a firefighter and paramedic with Eugene Springfield Fire and the president of Lane Professional Firefighters Local 851 — said the budget’s initial cuts to emergency services are part of a “troubling and familiar pattern” that he said could be reversed by the formation of a unified fire district.
“Can anyone at these tables assure me that we won’t be facing the same scenario in the next biennial budget?” Deedon said.
Allison Straub, the president and CEO of Burley, a local business founded in 1978, was one of a few speakers asking councilors to include business voices on a proposed Budget Stabilization Task Force, which will be charged with searching for long-term solutions.
Other speakers, such as Ward 1 resident J.P. Lumke, said he was concerned budget writers did not target the property tax exemptions given to the developers of multiunit housing developments — but services such as the swimming pool and public library were initially “on the chopping block.”
Dana Fleming, executive director of the Eugene Public Library Foundation, thanked the council for passing the amended budget, which will allow the library community to “breathe a sigh of relief.” But she said councilors must find a permanent solution to the city’s financial crisis and restore the $3 million in funds cut from the library.
The city’s general fund — which pays for most city services — is $496.4 million for the two years beginning July 1. The total budget, which includes funds that generally can be used only for specific purposes, is $1.868 billion.
