Birch Bay's Viability as a City

Brett Sheckler is fond of saying that almost every community can incorporate if it is willing to accept the level of service it can afford. He is a consultant at Berk & Associates, the firm that Washington cities go for answers to financial questions, and he is the leader of the team that evaluated Birch Bay’s feasibility. The final report was released March 31.

Many people, even some who go to Steering Committee meetings, believe Birch Bay is not viable as a city because we have few retail businesses to generate sales taxes. But Mr. Sheckler shows that there are other revenues available to Birch Bay, and the city “would generate enough revenues to provide a slightly higher level of service than residents currently receive.”

The report explains that under a tax that held Birch Bay residents’ tax burdens equal to what they pay as residents of Whatcom County, the city would generate $3,181,000 in ‘core’ operating revenues (in 2009), able to provide slightly higher levels of service over those currently received for $ 2,963,000. That would leave $218,000 in revenues (7%) remaining to increase levels of services.

At the outset, the report goes on to say, Birch Bay’s government would be a bare bones operation, most likely renting space for a “city hall.” Police services would be provided by the county sheriff with police cars with Birch Bay insignia and officers in Birch Bay uniforms. The important difference, advocates of incorporation can argue, would be that decisions would be made by a Birch Bay city council with local boards and more opportunity for resident participation.

Berk and Associates also compared the property tax base and sales tax revenues of Birch Bay with those of 11 Washington cities that incorporated in the past 15 years. Birch Bay’s property and sales tax base per resident would rank above that of eight of the 11 recently incorporated cities, indicating that a Birch Bay city would have a relatively strong financial base.

The full 87-page report can be read at the Incorporation pages of wwwbirchbayinfo.org.

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