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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Salt Lake City Council has approved a $597 million budget that rejected many of Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposals.
Anderson was in Sweden and Denmark for a Rotary conference and missed Thursday night's council meeting, as he has most of the budget deliberations.
A compromise was worked out on the issue of police officers taking home their patrol cars.
Supporters of the policy in Salt Lake City and elsewhere contends it helps fight crime. It enables officers to respond quickly in an emergency or when they are off duty and something comes up, the sight of patrol cars tends to make motorists more careful and even parked patrol cars make those neighborhoods less of a target to criminals.
Anderson wanted to trim the $441,000 subsidy, conserve fuel, cut down on pollution and the wear and tear of cars.
He proposed banning personal use of the 446 take-home cars, while still allowing officers to use them for their secondary, security jobs, and allowing only those who live within 25 miles of City Hall to take them home.
He argued the benefits to the city are lost when the cars are parked in Wanship or Roy, for example.
The council, and the police union, balked. The council will allow unlimited personal use for officers living in the city and will somewhat limit it for those who don't. Employees can live up to 35 miles away and still take home the cars. Employees will have to reimburse the city based on how far away they live.
Anderson suggested shifting 14 golf employees to seasonal status. The council saved five spots after hearing several emotional pleas from the employees.
Anderson wanted to hire 44 new employees and he called for $9.5 million in property tax hikes and fee increases.
The council approved hiring 22 workers, including three police officers, four employees to create a one-stop counter for building permits and inspections, a downtown renovation coordinator, a prosecutor, a planner to handle the new anti-monster-home ordinance, an energy-efficiency coordinator and a part-time open-space coordinator.
Council members did not want to hike taxes, as the mayor did, to pay for more jobs. A majority of the council agreed to a one-time tax bump due to shortfalls from tax appeals for the library but rejected a larger judgment levy for the general fund.
They won't add positions to the Justice Court, nor put more money toward youth programs.
They rejected adding a 50-cent tax to some downtown parking lots and also declined major revisions to business license fees.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
