MRSC Insight Blog

Posts for September 2014

Beautiful business woman high fiving colleague during meeting

September 29, 2014 by Lynn Nordby
Category: Administration and Management

This report on the CBS Sunday Morning broadcast of August 31 offers more evidence in support of the proposition I made in a previous MRSC Insight blog post, Employee Satisfaction: What Goes Around Comes Around, that satisfied employees are good for your "brand". In that post I described how..

What Makes A Successful Ballot Measure? A Look at the Data

September 25, 2014 by Tracy Burrows
Category: Elections

A review of the results of over 600 local ballot measures in our searchable ballot measure database shows some very interesting trends. 73% of all ballot measures succeed, but that only tells part of the story.

Does the Open Public Meetings Act Apply to County Finance Committees?

September 24, 2014 by Pat Mason
Category: Open Public Meetings Act

MRSC legal staff has concluded that meetings of county finance committees are subject to the requirements of OPMA. Here's why.

Resolution or Ordinance?

September 22, 2014 by Paul Sullivan
Category: Legislative Body

It’s a dilemma. Should a council or board action be taken by ordinance? Or by resolution?Sometimes the answer is easy, as a statute or charter may specify which to use. For example, ordinances must be used to adopt a code city budget (RCW 35A.33.075) and to vacate a county road (RCW 36.87.120). And actions taken initially by ordinance can only be amended or repealed by ordinance.
The answer...

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State Shared-Work Program Provides an Alternative to Layoffs

September 22, 2014 by Josh Mahar
Category: Termination and Retirement

Facing layoffs in this year’s budget? You may want to consider the Employment Security Department’s Shared-Work Program. Through the program, employers...

Quick Questions, Quick Answers

September 22, 2014 by Paul Sullivan
Category:

I recently paged through the MRSC database. Some of the questions and answers I found may be of interest to all local governments. I’m setting out a few examples of questions and short answers that may be of useful.
Must sales tax be paid when public records are provided to a requesting party?
No. RCW 82.12.02525 provides in part:

The provisions of this...

Privacy Rights, the Public Records Act, and Unanswered Questions

September 19, 2014 by Joe Levan
Category: Public Records Act

In a highly anticipated court decision that was issued recently, the Washington State Court of Appeals had an opportunity to address important unanswered questions related to what privacy rights a public official has under the Public Records Act (PRA)...

Budget Forecasting - Revenue projections not always that easy to develop

September 16, 2014 by Toni Nelson
Category: Budgets and Budgeting

It is budget time again and most of you are working on revenue forecasts that will be used to develop the budget for the next fiscal period. Accurate revenue forecasts are essential to budget execution. If the forecast grossly overestimates the amount of future revenues, the end result will be a deficit and the potential for mid-year spending cuts. On the other hand, if the revenue forecast is...

De-Annexation of Property from a City – How Does That Happen?

September 12, 2014 by Bob Meinig
Category: Annexation

Every once in a while we get asked how property may be “de-annexed” – removed from city boundaries. This rarely occurs, because it's a lot easier in Washington State for property to get annexed to a city than it is for the opposite to occur.

Tacoma's Murray Morgan Bridge, courtesy of Scott Hingst.

The Case for Asset Management in Public Works

September 11, 2014 by John W. Carpita, PE
Category: Administration

This is a guest post from Toby Rickman, 2014 APWA-WA President, and Deputy Director of Public Works for Pierce County. This post is adapted from an article in APWA-WA's latest issue of PUBLICworks Magazine.

Fall is in the Air – and Budget Workshops are Filling Your Agendas

September 10, 2014 by Mike Bailey
Category: Budgets and Budgeting

Summer is winding down and councils are about to start their workshops to review the preliminary budget. This article will focus on how to make the best use of your upcoming budget workshops and hopefully create the “best budget” for your organization.

Yakima's Election System Deemed in Violation of Voting Rights Act

September 4, 2014 by Flannary Collins
Category: Elections

A federal district court judge recently ruled that the City of Yakima’s city council election system violates Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §1973. Observing that no...

Superior Court Decision on Fife Pot Ban

September 2, 2014 by Jim Doherty
Category: Cannabis Regulation , Court Decisions and AGO Opinions

On Friday, August 29th, the Pierce County Superior Court issued an oral ruling, after the attorneys made their arguments, that the City of Fife has the authority to ban all marijuana businesses. In essence, the judge agreed with the basic analysis given by the Attorney General in AGO 2014 No. 2 in January.
Because the court ruled in the city's favor on this local option issue, there was no...

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