Balancing the cost of living in Richland
RICHLAND, Wash. - Prices are going up on just about everything.
Gas, groceries, services. It's likely this is why people are spending less.
That's coming at Richland's expense. The city brought in less money in sales tax than it used to, 16 percent less. That's going to make the cost of living go up for people city wide.
Richland is proposing hikes to garbage,water and power.
City manager, Cindy Johnson, says balancing Richland's budget is similar to how she budgets at home.
The biggest priority is maintaining emergency services.
Bigger items like road expansions and building projects take a back seat. But at some point Richland has to pass on its operating expenses to the residents if the money coming in won't cover it.
The drop in local sales tax dollars coming into Richland was no surprise. In fact, city officials say they saw this coming. Once the first quarter numbers were released they decided they needed to adjust the budget a little bit so they know what they can and cannot spend in 2013.
Cindy Johnson, city manager said, "If there's more things we want to accomplish we're going to have to do something different. We're either going to have to reduce services or staff but that's going to be a longer conversation."
It's why Richland is starting smaller with a likely hike of more than 4 percent to garbage and water. The city already agreed on over a 12 percent rate increase for electricity.
This amounts to a potential 20 percent increase in overall utilities next year for people living in Richland. Neighbors don't like the idea.
"We're in a recession over here. We are not as affected as the rest of the country is that's for sure," said Brian Carey.
He has a different idea to balance the books.
"Start charging Oregonians sales tax instead of giving them a break," he said.
Making everyone pay their fair share if the cost of living is going to rise.
Gas, groceries, services. It's likely this is why people are spending less.
That's coming at Richland's expense. The city brought in less money in sales tax than it used to, 16 percent less. That's going to make the cost of living go up for people city wide.
Richland is proposing hikes to garbage,water and power.
City manager, Cindy Johnson, says balancing Richland's budget is similar to how she budgets at home.
The biggest priority is maintaining emergency services.
Bigger items like road expansions and building projects take a back seat. But at some point Richland has to pass on its operating expenses to the residents if the money coming in won't cover it.
The drop in local sales tax dollars coming into Richland was no surprise. In fact, city officials say they saw this coming. Once the first quarter numbers were released they decided they needed to adjust the budget a little bit so they know what they can and cannot spend in 2013.
Cindy Johnson, city manager said, "If there's more things we want to accomplish we're going to have to do something different. We're either going to have to reduce services or staff but that's going to be a longer conversation."
It's why Richland is starting smaller with a likely hike of more than 4 percent to garbage and water. The city already agreed on over a 12 percent rate increase for electricity.
This amounts to a potential 20 percent increase in overall utilities next year for people living in Richland. Neighbors don't like the idea.
"We're in a recession over here. We are not as affected as the rest of the country is that's for sure," said Brian Carey.
He has a different idea to balance the books.
"Start charging Oregonians sales tax instead of giving them a break," he said.
Making everyone pay their fair share if the cost of living is going to rise.
Brian Carey
Why should I have to pay state taxes twice just for spending my money in the Tricities?' I already pay around $8000.00 in Oregon State income tax yearly. How would you like to pay taxes twice? I spend several hundreds of dollars every month in Washington as do many people I know from Oregon. I still pay WA state, county and local taxes on the fuel, food and other services I use in WA. If I had to pay WA sales tax on top of OR income tax I would probably spend less time and money in Tricities putting less money into the local economy.
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I am not getting a free ride or getting out of paying taxes, i just get mine taken from me before I get my check. I wished Oregon had a sales tax that way people from WA, ID and MT couldn't come and get off tax free and people from those places wouldn't think I am cheating the system when I don't pay sales tax..