Is Walla Walla’s City Budget Just Smoke and Mirrors?
As election season nears, local officials are promising tax cuts, but a local newspaper questions if the administration has the willpower—or the record—to pull it off.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The city administration is getting very good now that the election is so near. At the council meeting last night, Mayor Hunt called upon the chairmen of several committees to prepare estimates of their probable expenditures for the next fiscal year. In response to this request, it is safe to predict that at the next meeting of the council on July 5th, a sort of budget will be brought in showing a prospective reduction of city expenditures and a promise of a lower rate of taxation. However, such estimates will have little weight with the taxpayers, who are inclined to judge by performances rather than promises. It is an undisputed fact that under the administration of Mayor Hunt, the tax rate has been higher than ever before. It is now 14.2 mills—two mills higher than under the previous administration. This increase is partly due to the fact that a tax is now levied for water bonds, even though the revenues from the water department are higher than ever. Under prudent management, the water department should earn enough to pay interest and retire debt without levying taxes on property. There is no reasonable excuse for these levies; it is too much like death-bed repentance.
“It is an undisputed fact that under the administration of Mayor Hunt the tax rate in this city has been higher than ever before.”
The tension between pre-election budget optimism and the reality of rising property taxes is a perennial feature of Walla Walla civic life, echoing contemporary debates over public utility management and municipal debt.
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