An unexpected drop in property tax revenues may mean a rough trail ahead for South Whidbey parks.
Officials with the South Whidbey Parks & Recreation District are giving a fresh look at this year’s budget in light of revised revenue figures from the Island County assessor.

The outlook is grim: More than $100,000 in cuts will be needed to this year’s spending plan. Instead of roughly $712,000 the park district hoped to get from its property tax levy, it will get about $600,000.

“It’s a large hit. It’s huge,” said Parks Commissioner Allison Tapert.

Tapert said the parks board hasn’t made any final decisions on where to cut, but a discussion last week over the staff proposal to amend the budget exposed stark differences.

“At times, quite frankly, it was a heated conversation,” she said.

Where to make the necessary cuts is where the budget knife takes the fork in the road.

Though staff suggestions have included reduced funding for vandalism repairs, trail maintenance and additional work at Trustland Trails, the least popular ideas include canceling most of the park district’s summer concerts and its winter festival — a move that combined would save $1,450.

Instead, Tapert said, the district should look at abandoning the pay raises for staff that were built into the 2011 budget.

Pay raises for parks employees this year include wage increases for the parks director, maintenance supervisor and other employees, according to the district’s 2011 budget. Parks Director Terri Arnold is the district’s highest paid employee; her wages were budgeted to increase from $63,566 last year to $65,211 in 2011.

“Quite frankly, that’s unprecedented right now,” Tapert said of the raises. “People are losing their jobs, they are losing their hours. They are losing their homes. There are a lot of sad stories out there.”
Tapert said there was another sure non-starter among possible budget cuts: talk of cutting back on maintenance at the South End’s public lake properties, a duty that the parks district picked up when the state and county backed out.

Tapert said she “completely, 100 percent disagreed” with the staff suggestion to eliminate funding for the work.

“I was a little frosted on that. To me, it’s completely unacceptable,” she said.

“We don’t spend that much money to maintain the lakes,” Tapert said, and noted the thousands of residents who use those parks each summer.

The capital budget will bear the burden of most cuts; roughly $85,000 by Tapert’s estimate.

New picnic tables or garbage cans are on the chopping block, as well as benches for Trustland Trails, a new fence at Lone Lake, and repairs to the roof at the parks concession building. Improvements to the district’s new maintenance facility were zeroed out in the revised capital budget.

“Those are things I don’t have any problem putting off,” Tapert said.

Cutting programs was another story.

“I would rather make cuts to things like raises, than to take away the Winter Festival, and take away the concerts,” she said.

“I don’t want their park experience to be diminished because we’re having a bit of financial difficulty,” Tapert said. “I don’t want our customers or constituents to feel this. There is space within our budget.”

Parks officials will meet next on March 16. Tapert said a timeline for adopting budget cuts had not been adopted by the district.