Salem’s business community is seeking a seat at the table as the city of Salem contemplates deep cuts to balance its budget. The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce and the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties – collectively known as Salem Solutions – on Wednesday called for a new budget efficiencies committee to be set up in 2025. They want the group to examine the city’s budget with the hopes of identifying efficiencies, and to include community members with professional experience working with budgets.  Leaders of both groups sent a letter to Mayor Chris Hoy and current and incoming Salem city councilors on Wednesday pitching the idea of the new committee. They pitched it as a way of creating transparency and building trust with the community, saying past city efforts to balance the budget have focused more on raising taxes and fees than on finding ways to save. “This would be a group solely tasked with one missional goal, and that would be studying efficiencies and expenditures within the city,” said Tom Hoffert, the chamber’s CEO. “If we felt it important enough to do that on the revenue side, I would challenge our entire residency to say, ‘If we were that committed on the revenue side, ought we not be that committed on the expenditure side?’” In June, a revenue task force appointed by the city identified eight ways for the city to increase revenue to help plug a now nearly $18 million budget deficit including a business license fee and a property tax levy, proposals the Wednesday letter described as unnecessary burdens on Salem’s local business community.  Hoffert said work by a committee of this kind would lend credibility to city efforts to pursue property tax increases in the future to help fund public safety, parks and the library.  Recent city polling showed Salem residents would likely reject a levy if it were put on the ballot saying they could not afford to pay more taxes.  In poll, Salem residents say they won’t pay more property taxes for public safety, library or parks “We’d like to be in a position to be advocating for a methodology that works within the city’s constructs, and to do that we need to have the credibility of having looked at both sides of the equation, not just additional revenue,” Hoffert said.  Hoffert said going through the budget in this way could help verify the city’s budgetary projection. The call for a deeper examination of the city’s budget echoes the campaign of Mayor-elect Julie Hoy, who repeatedly said while seeking office in the spring that Salem could balance its budget without major cuts to public safety through a deeper examination of spending, without offering specific plans. Julie Hoy did not respond to emailed questions or a voicemail seeking her thoughts on the proposal Wednesday. She takes office in January. Salem City Manager Keith Stahley said in an interview Wednesday that he plans to meet with Hoffert to discuss the specifics of the committee and what the expectations and outcomes would be.  “I am in favor of doing something with the Chamber to look at and examine our budget and the details of our operations as best we can,” Stahley said. “It is also about getting feedback from people in the private sector about how they approach managing and reducing costs and we are certainly open to those perspectives.”  Stahley said he views it as an opportunity to identify ways to eliminate waste, find efficiencies in the budget and build trust.   “I think there is a lot of misunderstanding in regards to our budget processes and the nature of our budget and how we are required to develop and adopt our budgets,” Stahley said. “I welcome that opportunity to sit down with a group of people who bring a business perspective to the table and we can talk about what is feasible within a local government setting, and what’s not.”  Council President Linda Nishioka said while her first reaction to the committee was frustration, she said she would support it if it is likely to help build trust with the community. She said a committee like the one proposed could be redundant given work currently being done by Moss Adams, a Portland-based accounting firm the city uses, and a newly established budget forecast review team. “If adding this blue-ribbon budget efficiencies committee builds trust, then I will be all for it,” Nishioka said. “I believe that it would help build trust if some members of the City Council and Budget Committee were involved in the committee. This may not be what the Chamber had in mind, but I feel it will assist in working together.” Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE – If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Chamber, home builders association call for new committee to focus on city budget  appeared first on Salem Reporter.