St. Helens budget committee weighs utility fee, furloughs and hiring freezes to close gap

St. Helens budget committee members spent nearly three hours on May 15 weighing alternatives to close a projected general-fund shortfall, including a proposed $42.10 monthly utility surcharge and smaller options that mix employee furloughs, pay freezes and new fees.

The committee and staff framed three primary scenarios: the original $42.10 public safety/general service fee; a $16 monthly fee combined with a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and 12 furlough days per year for most staff; and a $13.70 fee paired with no COLAs, no furloughs and a hiring freeze. Staff presented additional revenue ideas such as a $10-per-month business-license charge on multiunit residential rentals, a $220-per-month commercial rental fee, and an event-ticket impact fee estimated at $4.95 per ticket.

The discussion matters because committee members must balance maintaining services — notably police, library and recreation operations — against a shrinking reserve fund. Maria Butch, finance director and budget officer, told the committee that the package of staff revisions would reduce the proposed $42.10 approach to lower-fee options and that reducing the reserve fund from 17% to 10% was the lowest fiscally responsible alternative presented.

Dozens of residents used the three-minute public-comment period to urge the committee not to adopt a large water surcharge. “If each one of those [5,000 housing] units is charged about $42, that’s going to generate around $280,000,” said Nicholas Helmick, a community member and former Community Action Team employee. Several speakers said the fee would force low-income residents and seniors to choose between food, medicine and utilities.

Union and staff concerns also featured in the meeting. Tyler Hills, president of AFSCME Local 1789, representing city workers, opposed furloughs, calling a single monthly furlough day “a 4.6% decrease in pay” for affected employees and urging the committee to seek alternatives that do not reduce employee pay. Kathy Payne, the city’s human-resources coordinator and city recorder, said she opposed furloughs, freeze of merit increases or cuts to retirement benefits and encouraged “a minimal increase in the public service fee” rather than pay reductions to frontline staff.

Committee members pressed staff on the mechanics and consequences of each option. Staff answered that a $16 fee scenario with furloughs and a 2.5% COLA would roughly replace the larger fee by combining personnel-service reductions (an estimated $549,500 from furloughs/hiring pauses), paused vehicle replacement and reduced professional development (about $104,000) and new/expanded fees. The $13.70 scenario assumes no COLA, a hiring freeze and other reductions and would rely on existing contract negotiations with represented employees to hold wage growth down.

No formal decision was adopted at the meeting. Committee members requested that Police Chief Hogue appear at the next meeting to explain whether 24‑hour patrol coverage could be maintained under reduced staffing scenarios and asked staff to return with the revised revenue and reduction assumptions. The budget committee set a follow-up meeting for May 29 to continue deliberations.