The City of Yakima is asking for community members to provide input about budget priorities through a survey that was opened today and will remain open until mid-April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe City is facing some very difficult budget challenges and the City Council needs help from the community to make tough decisions,\u201d said City Manager Vicki Baker. \u201cProjections show that by 2026, the City will bring in about $9 million less in tax revenue than it will cost to provide basic services, like police, fire, parks, and streets. The feedback that is provided through the survey will help the Council determine how best to address that issue,\u201d said Baker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inflation and other factors have contributed to the budget challenges facing the City. State law requires cities to adopt balanced budgets. That means the projected shortfall in 2026 of about $9 million has to be addressed through either increasing tax revenue or significantly reducing or even completely eliminating programs and services currently provided by the City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People who take the survey will be asked to prioritize core City services and whether they support increasing property taxes to preserve those services. Survey takers will also go through a budget reduction exercise that includes a list of programs and services, the cost to provide them, and the number of City jobs that would be cut if a program or service was reduced or eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The survey is available in both Spanish and English. Survey takers can choose the language they would like to see the survey in by clicking a translation button in the upper right-hand corner of the survey\u2019s first page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The survey is available at https:\/\/engage.zencity.io\/yakima-wa\/en\/engagements\/1522b419-faa5-4df1-9457-b7787440584d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Posts on the City\u2019s website<\/a> front page and social media platforms include links and QR codes that will connect community members to the survey site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the survey, the City will have staff at several community events and other locations over the next month or so to help people take the survey. Baker will also be making presentations about the survey at various locations through March and early April, including three upcoming Town Hall meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe very much want to hear from our community about how we will move ahead together to resolve the budget issues we face today,\u201d said Baker.\u00a0 \u201cI look forward to learning from the community and putting together solutions for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of Yakima is asking for community members to provide input about budget priorities through a survey that was opened today and will remain open until mid-April. \u201cThe City is facing some very difficult budget challenges and the City Council needs help from the community to make tough decisions,\u201d said City Manager Vicki Baker. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15102,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100\/revisions\/15102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}