Many projects and positions would be deferred under the plan.

Fifty-six million dollars.

It’s enough to bankroll a few decades at the wishing well, but it’s not nearly enough to pay down many of the city’s most mundane road work and staffing dreams.

Millions of dollars were cut from the draft of Mayor Darlene Kordonowy’s proposed $56 million city budget for 2007, sidelining numerous city department requests for additional staff, Halls Hill Road improvements and planning initiatives.

The draft goes before the City Council for consideration, minus many sought-after programs and positions:

Projects staff: The largest staffing deferment denied the public works department an $830,000 request for three new engineering and technical staff dedicated to implementing the city’s planned capital improvements projects over the next three years.

Public Works Director Randy Witt requested the additional staff after a number of capital projects were removed from the mayor’s proposed budget due to already limited staffing levels.

The deleted projects included road work on North Madison Avenue, non-motorized transportation improvements on Wyatt Way and Wing Point Way, and nearly a dozen other projects. The projects, along with the three new staff, would cost almost $4 million. According to Witt, the three new capital improvements staff would be the most effective and least expensive method of implementing the listed projects.

Public Works was also denied its request for a trails engineer technician. Budgeted at almost $500,000 over three years, the technician would have lead the construction of trails on city-owned lands and the improvement of public road-ends.

While Public Works didn’t get all the staff on its wish list, the department did garner the largest number of new employees in the proposed budget.

The mayor allotted over $320,000 for five new Public Works staff, including two water resources specialists, an engineering technician, a development services engineer and a city property manager.

The mayor’s budget reflects the basic needs of the city, while falling short of providing the necessary staff for other, less-pressing projects, said Witt.

“The capital requests are scalable,” he said. “It can go up or down. But (the five staff listed on the proposed budget) are for things we absolutely have to do, like for permit work and knowing and understanding the island’s water resources.”

Halls Hill Road: Despite public calls for immediate stabilization work, an $800,000 Halls Hill Road improvement project was also deleted from Public Work’s 2007 docket.

Residents living below the steep road’s bank, which has suffered from erosion in recent years, successfully lobbied the City Council to temporarily close the road. Subsequent city analysis judged the road stable enough for vehicle travel.

Work proposed for Halls Hill Road included general restabilization, shoulder widening and improved drainage.

The implications of not tackling the road in 2007 include high maintenance costs. Also, the “operation of (the) substandard roadway may lead to injury accidents,” according to preliminary budget documents listing Hall Hill Road’s deferral.

Stephanie Ross, a Seaborn Road resident living below Halls Hill Road, urged the city not to defer the stabilization project.

“There should be some type of repair now,” she said. “Their own report says there’s a likelihood of injury. That says it all.”

Witt defended the decision to defer improvements to Halls Hill Road, saying that the project is queued behind other necessary road stabilization efforts. His department plans to tackle Fort Ward Hill Road next year, and Halls Hill Road later.

“Fort Ward Hill Road is in a similar situation and we think it’s less stable,” he said.

Various factors must be considered when prioritizing expensive stabilization and road repair projects.

“We have to think ‘what’s the risk? What’s the priority? Where’s the money?’” he said. “It’s (based on) a competitive situation, rather than ‘the last person with the biggest complaint.’”

Shorelines: The Planning and Community Development Department’s request for an additional shorelines expert may also have to wait another year or two. The proposed budget would defer the department’s request for a second natural resources planner costing $178,275 over the next three years.

The position would have lead research projects, negotiated with other agencies on shoreline issues, helped lead environmental stewardship programs and developed an integrated city pest management system.

The city’s current shorelines planner Peter Namtvedt Best said the added planner would have allowed the city to more effectively deal with the numerous shorelines issues currently under consideration, while allowing for a broader array of initiatives and research projects.

“The position would have taken some of the load I have and can’t do now and expand on what I’m already doing,” Best said.

Much of Best’s time is currently tied up in issues involving litigation over the city’s Blakely Harbor docks moratorium. In addition, Best overseas the city’s Salmon Stewardship Program; restoration work at Pritchard Park and the Strawberry Plant property on Eagle Harbor; and public education and outreach.

“Like a lot of people here, I’ve got a heck of a lot to do,” he said. “There’s not enough staff yet to get everything done.”

Rather than add the new planner, the proposed budget gives the planning department a new code enforcement staffer, which City Administrator Mary Jo Briggs said matches the city’s immediate needs.

“It was a question of choices,” she said. “We may consider it next year, but we thought the code enforcement staff person was a better fit with the community’s and the council’s priorities.”