'Misleading' mailer spurs city response

Calling the numbers “misleading,”

Whitefish Finance Director Rich Knapp has responded to an email and

election mailer sent out last week by Rick Blake that regards city

expenditures per capita.

Blake, who is behind the We Love

Stumptown PAC, sent a mailer and email that included a graph

comparing Whitefish to Kalispell, Polson and Columbia Falls. The

numbers show Whitefish’s total fiscal year 2012 budget divided by

Whitefish’s total population set by the 2010 census. A bar graph is

used to show that Whitefish’s city expenditures per capita is

$5,946, compared to the three other cities which are all below

$2,500.

In an email to Whitefish city

councilors, Knapp calls the comparison misleading because it

compares total budget and doesn’t break down what is included in

the total appropriated budget.

“Also, it doesn’t explain where the

money came from — how could we be so high per capita yet have [the]

second lowest mill levy in the state?” he states in the email.

Blake told the Pilot the graph in the

email showed the total expenditures of the city. “Either the city

spent the money or they didn’t,” he said.

Knapp says there are many variables

that may make Whitefish’s expenditures different than the other

cities.

“This total appropriated divided by

population comparison fails to take into account how much grant

monies the municipality is budgeting to spend,” Knapp said, “how

much is budgeted to be spent in the current year on capital from

previous years’ accumulation or from debt, how much is strictly

interfund transfers, and it does not compare services provided in

each city and the level of service.”

He goes on to explain that the FY 2012

budget includes capital grants and loans that total at least $5.54

million, including the $3.3 million TIGER grant and $2.14 million

in resort tax funded projects.

“Included in the $37.8 million

appropriated budget are $6.45 million in interfund transfers,”

Knapp goes on to explain. “Transfers should not be included when

determining total expenditures, because that would be double

counting that $6.45 million.”

He also notes that the other cities

compared may not have services or resources that Whitefish has.

Knapp points to $5 million in TIF funds, and Special Improvement

Districts that includes $2.4 million for the Whitefish Trail.