Budget takes smarter, more integrated approaches
Brian Coddington, Communications Director, 509.625.6740
Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 2:08 p.m.
Spokane Mayor David Condon announced a new police precinct and released the draft 2015 Program Budget.
The City is transforming a building at the corner of Market Street and Diamond Avenue into the North Spokane Police Precinct. Like the successful Downtown Precinct, this location will house a police captain, detectives and officers, specifically working to drive down crime and address quality of life issues in north Spokane.
“We have already allocated resources to the North Police Serve Area and are seeing results: crime in north Spokane is down more than 12 percent year to date,” Condon said. “Providing a ‘home’ for these police resources by way of the establishment of the North Spokane Precinct, will continue to drive down crime and give citizens better access to their police department.”
Adding the North Precinct represents another in a series of significant investments in an up-and-coming part of town, and puts the northeast at the leading edge of how the Spokane Police Department is driving down crime and making Spokane safer, Condon said. The precinct is expected to be open by the end of the year.
Work done over the past two years on the operational side of the budget has shifted the focus to include larger investments in priority areas. The 2015 Program Budget:
“As we have engaged the community in a conversation over the past months and years about what is important to them and how we are delivering services, people have told us consistently that public safety and streets are their priority,” Condon said. “We have also been struck by how much people value and treasure the parks system as a community and tourism draw.”
Citizen direction is driving smarter, more integrated ways of delivering street and utility improvements to stretch citizen investments and produce better outcomes in 2015. The budget proposes efficiencies in the process for hiring new officers to keep staffing consistent. It pushes beyond traditional ways of providing fire and emergency medical services to better meet evolving community needs. And, for the first time ever, it adds prioritization and $162 million in funding to our six-year Capital Improvement Plan to fulfill capital needs.
Performance measures are once again integrated into the Program Budget. Those key performance indicators help measure progress, identify opportunities for improvement and achieve better outcomes.
The full draft 2015 Program Budget is available at MySpokaneBudget.org. It is an interactive site, so citizens can adjust the numbers and submit their comments and revisions to the budget right from the site. Comments can also be emailed to mayor@spokanecity.org.
