Mercer Island’s budget is said to have a “structural imbalance,” which essentially means that the city’s expenditures are growing faster than its revenues.

Though the budget is balanced for the next two years, soon taxes will need to be raised or services will need to be cut, said Finance Director Chip Corder. One of the proposed cuts for this biennium is in open space vegetation management.

Open space management, like other capital improvement projects, is planned on a six-year basis. Corder presented the most up-to-date version of the 2015-16 Budget on Nov. 3, and suggested cutting $50,000 per year from the open space fund, or $100,000 in the biennium and $300,000 over six years.

The parks department can still maintain what it has accomplished to date in regard to managing open space and vegetation, Corder said.

All the areas being worked on would proceed on their current trajectories, but new areas of restoration couldn’t be brought in at that funding level, said Paul West, parks natural resources coordinator.

A few councilmembers opposed the cuts, though they won’t come back for a final discussion until Nov. 17.

Deputy Mayor Dan Grausz said that reducing open space funding would not keep faith with the voters, who approved a $252,000, 15-year parks levy lift in 2008 to fund park improvements.

He said that the funds should not be cut for the next two years, which is all the Council can control during its review of the preliminary budget.

“I can guarantee that the budget in 2017 won’t look like this. We all know the budget changes,” Grausz said. “The budget changed within the last two months and it will change in two years.”

Active restoration in the natural areas of Mercer Island’s parks expanded significantly in 2009 and 2010, due to additional funding from the levy and a favorable bidding climate for contracted vegetation work.

West said that the landscape industry saw a rebound in costs after the recession.

“The Council made a very good decision when we had a favorable market to move aggressively. We have a lot of areas in restoration as a result, and now maintaining them in a rebounded economy is costing us more,” West said.

The funding in the first few years was used to fight invasive species, and “that’s been accomplished,” Corder said.

“Reducing to maintenance levels is not what voters wanted,” Grausz said. “We have to stand fast with the voters and what they approved with the parks levy.”

Corder said that the $50,000 being pulled back is not money from the parks levy, but the portion that is supplemented by real estate excise tax (REET).

Councilmember Tana Senn, who sits on the city’s open space conservancy trust, said that reducing open space management is not the direction that group would want to see.

Grausz said that parks maintenance is something that was important when he ran for City Council in 1999, and still is.

“Those of us who walk through the parks really appreciate the condition of our parks,” he said, referencing the planting of new trees in Mercerdale Park and other projects that he said shouldn’t be stopped.

“Everyone has their thing they’re passionate about,” Corder said, but cuts have to be made somewhere. For now, he said he is trying to rework the budget to bring back $100,000 for the next two years.

Corder said he will provide options of other cuts for the Council to vote on at its next meeting on Nov. 17. The final budget approval is set for Dec. 1.