State budget cuts to the city of Kent <\/a>were “less painful” than what they could have been considering the budget shortfall dealt with by legislators.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kent will need to slash about $600,000 from its budget because the state decided to keep all of a liquor excise tax for one year rather than sharing the usual portion with cities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That decision will cost the city about $300,000 the second half of this year and another $300,000 the first half of 2013, said Michelle Wilmot, city community and public affairs director, in her report April 17 to the City Council about the 2012 legislative session.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “That’s the one cut we saw,” Wilmot said. “But with as much as $10 million at stake, the $600,000 is less painful.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Mayor Suzette Cooke and Chief Administration Officer John Hodgson met with department heads to try to figure out where to make budget cuts worth $600,000. City staff expects to have a proposal soon about where to make cuts this year and next year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “There isn’t the wiggle room we usually have,” Cooke said. “We don’t have any cushion.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n City officials were concerned the state might take away the nearly $4.9 million the city gets per year because of the streamlined sales tax mitigation funds and the $3.7 million it gets per year from the annexation sales tax for annexing the Panther Lake area in 2010.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “The maintaining of the state-shared revenues was the bigger piece,” Wilmot said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n