June 1, 2011 will be an historic day for the City of Kirkland. We will become “even greater” as we are joined by the Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate neighborhoods. In seven short months, Kirkland will grow to a population of over 82,000 people and become the 12th largest city in Washington and the sixth largest city in King County.

Ensuring a warm welcome for the 33,000 new residents from the “annexation areas” is a central consideration as the Kirkland City Council works through its review of the proposed 2011-2012 budget. But as the council grapples with budget cuts to the existing city services, some have wondered whether the city can afford annexation and how the annexation will affect the city’s finances in the long term.

The good news is that we can afford this annexation, thanks to prudent decisions made by this council in 2010.

In July of this year, the council elected to “phase in” services in the annexation area over time and balance annexation area services with estimated annexation area tax revenues. Overall, we reduced these staffing levels from a 2006 estimate of 165 new employees down to 110 positions (primarily police and fire) in the proposed budget.

Kirkland will still provide far better service to the new areas than King County was able to provide, but this means no additional dollars from the current City of Kirkland will be used to subsidize those services. Annexation services will ramp up as new revenues from the area become available.

Kirkland’s current budget gap of $7.7 million dollars is real, but is not related to the annexation. Rather, like other cities across our country, Kirkland struggles with the economic downturn created by this “Great Recession.”

In fact, annexation provides us with a unique opportunity to preserve dedicated and skilled Kirkland employees. While we will eliminate 16 positions in the Kirkland budget, we are able to “rehire” 11 of those employees into annexation slots, allowing us to retain our experienced and committed staff.

This council’s commitment to conservative fiscal management has earned the city the highest credit rating and positioned us well in these challenging economic times, especially as we begin to grow gracefully with our new residents. The council recognizes the quality of life that those who live, work and play here have come to value. This budget review will challenge this council to find ways to sustain that quality of life with reliable revenue sources for all those whom the city serves.

Joan McBride is Kirkland’s current Mayor.