City Pulls Money From Reserve

Tools

Story Published: Aug 5, 2008 at 6:54 PM PDT

By Audrey Asistio

Watch the story
YAKIMA -- Yakima may need to make financial adjustments to get through 2009.
High gas prices forced the city to pull close to $500,000 dollars from its reserves.

Norm Johnson, Yakima City Council member says, "Reserves are limited and so consequently, we may have to take a hard look at what we're going to do budget-wise, coming for this following year."

The city already spent $1.1 million on gas just through July. Last year, they spent $1.8 million for the year.
The transit system, police department and garbage service have already used a huge chunk of the city's gas budget.

Captain Greg Copeland with the Yakima Police Department says "The bottom line is, we have to be out there. We have to be respondent to cars. People expect us to respond when they call, so there's not a lot we can do to save gas."

The police department has already doubled up on calls, so the city has to look for other ways to cut.

Norm Johnson adds, "You don't want to have your reserve down and not have any way of replenishing when catastrophic things happen."

The city's main focus is to get through this year.
They expect the reserve money to hold Yakima over until 2009.

They are also hoping to get financial help from the state, but the state's already more than $2 billion in debt, so getting money from them is unlikely.

Upload directly from your mobile device.

Learn how

YouNews

This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.

On Demand

Resources and info you need to prepare for the switch to DTV.

Stay Connected