Vancouver residents could see better-maintained street medians, increased street sweeping and more police officers next year.
City staff have proposed a year-end supplemental budget that would tack on an additional $39.3 million in expenditures and 13.5 full-time employees to the 2015-16 biennial budget. Vancouver’s 2015 general fund budget is $137.7 million.
On Dec. 21, the city council will consider approving the supplemental budget following a public hearing. The city adjusts the budgets each year to reflect changes in revenues and expenditures that happen after the biennial budget is adopted. The $39.3 million adjustment is comprised of $4.5 million in operating funds and $34.8 million in capital funds.
The new positions for 2016 include six police officers, who would provide capacity for the Vancouver Police Department to begin recruiting and training officers in anticipation of retirements. The positions will be funded by recreational marijuana excise taxes, of which the city is receiving $790,500 in 2016. The department is authorized to have 190 sworn officers.
“This will allow us to keep the recruitment machine moving forward,” Police Chief James McElvain said in an email Monday, noting that there are several candidates in the pipeline.
It takes about a year for newly hired police officers with no experience to become qualified to perform their duties on their own because the academy is six months long, and the field training program takes about five months to complete, he said. For now, the six officer positions will be limited to one-year terms, ending Dec. 31, 2016. However, the council will discuss the police department’s baseline staffing early next year.
Five maintenance workers will be added to the street department to maintain medians in the right-of-way. Those positions will be paid for with the new Operating Street Initiative Fund, which is supported by the increase in state fuel taxes and a 1.5 percent utility tax on city-owned utilities.
The other new jobs are a one-year position for a geographic information system maintenance engineering technician using money for GIS-related work that historically has been contracted out; a deputy fire marshal to help with permit reviews, funded with new revenue the position will generate; and a half-time information technology systems analyst for IT database support.
A big chunk of the additional expenditures is a $15 million increase for the Waterfront Park Project. It’s funded by state grants, donations, real estate excise tax revenue, $900,000 in general fund capital reserves and $5.5 million in general funds, of which $1.7 million is expected to be recouped by taxes from private construction activity on the waterfront project.
