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Budget Ideas...

November 26, 2007
Eatonville Town Council
Town of Eatonville
201 Center Street West,
PO Box 309
Eatonville WA 98328

Re: Public Hearing 2008 Preliminary Budget

Dear Council Members:

I urge you to instruct the staff to significantly reduce the 2008 Budget so that the final Budget will be much less. I urge this for the following three reasons:

To stop the overspending — The best guess, and at this point it has to be a guess because even the
auditor says there are not any reports that he will certify, is that in each of the last two years, 1.3 million dollars of saving has had to have been spent. At this point there is no reason to believe that there will be any significant savings at the start of 2008 to fall back on. The best guess I can make is that the spending will have to be reduced to at least 7.7 million dollars (9.3 — 1.6 = 7.7 {*see attaché budget} to avoid spending money that the Town does not have. There is no reason to believe that income will be increased by any great amount over that last two years and the Administration has not demonstrated any new revenue streams.

Avoid cuts in Public Safety — A number of years ago the decision that 24 hour police coverage would be maintained, this should continue to be reaffirmed. The rest of Public Safety should not be reduced.

Avoid rate increases — The administration needs to show a budget that would not require any rate increases. I believe that the spending will need to be cut as follows in order to support the previous threegoals: 17% or 1.6 million to get to a revenue neutral position, a further 10% (930,000) cut to go toward building up savings and loan payoffs and then a final 8% 744,000 to reflect that 2008 will not be as strong a year as 2007.

Sincerely,

Stephen G. Lind, PE

(*Publisher's Note: please see the final budget at  www.s-lind.com/2008finalbudget(2).pdf )