A new budget plan that assumes a ban on casinos shows the depth of Lakewood's dependence on gambling revenues.

Almost alone in the South Sound, the City of Lakewood has chosen to finance basic city services with gambling revenue. That chicken is coming home to roost.

The City Council has embraced casinos, and four now operate in Lakewood. That doesn't sit well with some of the city's citizens; they've used the initiative process to put a casino ban on the November ballot.

As a result, City Manager Andrew Neiditz has had to propose two city budgets: a status quo spending plan that assumes the ballot measure will lose and a "Plan B" that assumes it will prevail.

The gap between the two budgets shows just how addicted the city government is to gambling revenues - which amount to a stealth tax on the poor and gullible.

Should voters approve the ban, the government would lose $2.85 million in revenue for 2009, roughly 7 percent of what would otherwise be a $40 million operating budget. Neiditz proposes to carve much of the shortfall out of the police department, by eliminating 11 of its full-time positions. First to go would be six neighborhood-policing teams; each consists of a commissioned officer and a civilian.

Other cuts would include the $540,000 in grants the city gives to various nonprofit human-service groups.

One can be cynical about the Plan B budget. Jurisdictions elsewhere - especially school districts - have been known to threaten their most popular programs in the event of a budget cut. Neiditz insists his administration hasn't hyped the impact of the ban.

But if Plan B is the best the city government could do in the face of a $2.85 million shortfall, it points to gross fiscal irresponsibility. No city should let itself become so dependent on casino revenue that its abrupt loss would do so much damage.

Casino supporters - which include the majority of the City Council - would say that the best way to prevent that damage is to not pass the ban. But the very possibility that it might pass demonstrates the folly of building a budget on gambling revenues that very conceivably could vanish overnight.

Under the law, casinos - being governed by the criminal code - are one of the few enterprises that can be summarily banned with a single ordinance or public vote. Even if this November's initiative were to fail, a future corruption scandal or even a gambler's public suicide could destroy support for Lakewood's wide-open policy.

The city council appears bent on perpetuating the city's addiction to casino revenue. Hence the airy talk of restricting casinos in ways that state law doesn't permit - with the promise of local authority the Legislature has repeatedly refused to grant.

Plan B is a crisis-control budget. If the City of Lakewood weren't balancing its budget with money lost at the gambling tables, there wouldn't be any crisis to control.