In case you missed it, the Tacoma City Council is trying to fill an expected gap of ~$60M over the 2013-14 biennium. While there are still plenty of opportunities to attend a community budget meeting where you can hear from the City and share your thoughts, the City has also put together a number of electronic options to provide your input. Be forewarned that it can be a little overwhelming, especially since there is only limited detail available on many of the options listed.
The first survey ranks various services provided by the City in order of importance. It takes about two minutes and consists of essentially one question. It can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/City_of_Tacoma_City_Services_Questionnaire_2012
The second survey asks for suggestions on how to cut expenses or increase revenues. It is a short three box form for those with ideas. It can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B22HH9M
The final survey asks about the dollars and cents of the budget. It requires a total of 15% be cut from the general fund budget while allocating dollars to various departments. After this distribution, the survey goes department by department asking about which programs to increase or reduce funding to. The survey also includes some background information on how the money is being spent. It is more of a 15-20 minute survey and can be found here: http://www.cityoftacoma.org/citizensratingofservices
For more on the budget details, you can view the City Manager's presentation from the budget meeting discussion here: http://cms.cityoftacoma.org/CRO/COMPLETERatingResultsJune19StudySession_06_19_2012.pdf (3.8M file)
We encourage you to get involved in the discussion now. If you'd rather comment in person, we've posted a list of times and locations of the community meetings here.
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