ELLENSBURG — The 2009 Ellensburg budget was adopted Monday during the Ellensburg City Council meeting after minor discussion on whether or not to increase support of council-sponsored community programs.

Following the discussion, the council decided to retain the amount of support community programs such as the Yakima River Clean Up and HopeSource.

The FISH food bank was the only added program. The council chose to allocate the food bank $7,000. Support was also decreased for the Children’s Museum.

“The council is adopting a very conservative budget,” City Manager Ted Barkley said. “There are no plans to cut back on any services or positions in 2009.”

The council has been working hard to supply funding to as many programs as they can without cutting themselves short. The overall budget is comprised of $98,693,396.

The general fund, which includes funds such as city general, finance, engineering and police, was $11,953,442, up $1 million from last year.

According to the 2009 budget, sales tax is estimated to be up about $1.1 compared to last year. Barkley said the overall revenue is staying steady, even though the key players, home construction and auto sales and parts are significantly down.

According to Barkley, recent tax numbers show that sales tax regarding home construction and businesses related to home construction are down 55 percent compared to last year. Auto sales are similarly 26 percent lower this year.

“It will be down even further in the next two reports,” Barkley said.

Barkley added two years ago, 257 new living units were built. This year the books show about 24. Next year, there aren’t any slated to be built.

Despite the decrease in auto and home construction sales, the other forms of city revenue, such as restaurants and small businesses are still holding strong.

“Looking at larger retailers, restaurants and bars, those types of businesses are holding steady and are showing some growth,” Barkley said. “The picture isn’t all that bad.”

Construction that is occurring on Central Washington University’s campus is helping lessen the blow of the financial decrease of the main sources of revenue.

“Construction activity at CWU has produced enough construction to backfill the decline in home construction and auto sales,” Barkley said. “Because of the timing of payment, we’ll be pretty good shape in 2009.”

Transportation Impact Fees

The Ellensburg City Council also approved for an ordinance to be made regarding transportation and park and recreation impact fees.

Ellensburg has yet to impose a transportation impact fee. Currently the fee is being proposed to be $1,758 per p.m. peak hour trip.

The transportation impact fee would be collected by the developers to pay for public facilities needed to accommodate new growth and development in the city.

Local developer Chad Youngquist said he ordinarily builds between 25 and 50 homes a year, but given the economic conditions, has not come anywhere near that this year.

“I challenge the timing and severity of (the impact fees),” Youngquist said. “I would hope you would let our economy catch its breath a little bit.”

Other community members in attendance disagreed with Youngquist and the other developers.

“I’ve got news for the baby boomers,” Ellensburg resident Catherine Clerf said. “We have been living a champagne lifestyle. Some of us are just going to have to go broke.”

The council approved a motion for city staff to bring back an ordinance regarding the impact fees at a later date. The council asked staff to provide a three-year phase in of the park impact fee increase along with the park impact fee ordinance.