With Edmonds Mayor Mike Nelson’s 2024 Edmonds draft budget just released for city council consideration, councilmembers at their Tuesday night meeting received an overview from Administrative Services Director Dave Turley, who described the proposal as “a bare bones budget.”
“One of the biggest impacts to the budget this year is the recent inflation,” Turley said. “While our costs continue to rise…the city hasn’t had significant increases to the general fund revenues in decades,” and that limits the city’s ability to deliver services to the public, he added.
As an example, he pointed to the city’s contract with South County Fire for fire and emergency medical services, which has increased $4 million in the past two years. WCIA (Washington Cities Insurance Authority) Insurance has increased by $500,000. And the city has boosted employee salaries and benefits “to remain competitive with other cities…and to hold on to staff,” Turley said.
“Inflation has really hit everything — supplies, professional services, vehicles, fuel, utilities, just everything,” he added.
As a result, “this is not the year for the administration to be asking for growth,” Turley said. “We are not asking for new things.” There are just 20 general fund “decision packages” — budget requests from city staff — and “nearly all of them are just designed to maintain current service levels,” he said.
The budget does include two new staff positions that would be covered by general fund dollars — a climate action manager and a grants manager. The latter position would be specifically tasked with bringing in money for the city, Turley added.
The city is projecting an ending fund balance of $6.64 million this year, significantly lower than in past years. That means that the council during its budget discussions will be considering proposals for increasing revenue. Among the ideas: Using federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars or tapping in to the city’s “banked capacity” from five years’ worth of property tax increases. These are tax increases the city chose not to assess at the time, but were “banked” and therefore available for future use.
Tuesday night’s discussion was just the beginning of several budget-related meetings on the council calendar. Two departments — administrative services and the municipal court — gave previews of their decision package proposals, with more departments to follow in the coming weeks. There will be public hearings on the budget during the Oct. 17, 24 and Nov. 6 council meetings, council budget workshops on Oct. 19 and 30, and council budget reviews and discussions on Nov. 6 and 14. The goal is to have an approved budget by Nov. 21; state law requires that the budget be passed by Dec. 31.
Among the department-specific decision packages presented Tuesday:
Administrative services: increasing the number of licenses for web connectivity ($15,000) and for security log monitoring ($2,500) and replacing computers, laptops and other hardware ($102,500)
Municipal court: $18,500 to cover postage and related costs for passports and $20,ooo for pretrial monitoring for defendants. It was noted that Edmonds processed 128 passports in 2022 and — after switching from an appointment-based system to walk-ins — is on track to process 1,800 passports in 2023.
You can see all the decision packages here and the 2024 budget book here.
Nelson’s proposal for a climate action manager was supported by several residents who came to the podium during the meeting’s public comment period. Those speaking stressed the need for someone to oversee the city’s efforts to reach its 2023 Climate Action Plan targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Edmonds.
Hiring such a manager means that Edmonds “will increase our odds significantly for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” said speaker Georgina Armstrong. “A climate action manager will have the necessary experience and expertise to lead and coordinate the whole city climate action effort.”
Related to Nelson’s budget address, two councilmembers Tuesday took issue with the mayor’s statement that the majority of the city council “have refused to take action” on fire and emergency medical services funding and that without that action, “we risk losing fire and emergency medical services to our community.”
“I do take exception to that because council has in fact taken action,” said Councilmember Dave Teitzel, referring to a council resolution passed last week to investigate the possibility of annexation into the South County Fire regional fire authority, along with researching other options for fires service. “So that work is ongoing right now and I think we owe it to our voters to do that due diligence as a council,” Teitzel said.
Councilmember Vivian Olson added that the city’s current contract with the fire authority doesn’t expire until 2030, so the council has time to explore the issue. Even if the fire authority exercised its option to terminate the contract with two years’ notice, the city would still have until 2025 to consider the matter “after we are done concentrating on the 2024 Comprehensive Plan (and giving that important process its due),” Olson said.
In other business Tuesday night, the council:
– Received a presentation by public works and parks staff and held a public hearing regarding projects included in the city’s 2024-29 Capital Facilities Plan and Capital Improvement Program. Some of these projects are among 2024 staff decision packages still to be formally presented to the council; others are placeholders for future planning and funding. The public hearing drew a range of comments with a common theme: Residents want pedestrian walkways and traffic calming, and the projects are not coming soon enough to meet the needs of their neighborhoods.
– Postponed until next week a proposal by Councilmember Diane Buckshnis to repeal Ordinance 4079, the Highway 99 Planned Action Ordinance.
— By Teresa Wippel
Record revenues record spending. Our little city government has grown the number of employees by about 10% in just 2 years. Yet they say they are understaffed. What has caused the need for all this new help, more revenue? To top that off they say they need even more revenue cause record revenue isn’t enough to sustain their insatiable appetite for our tax dollars. Plus our debt service has nearly tripled in the last few years. I say enough we need some fiscal responsibility from our government, if anything we need to look at what we can do without, if the city was a business it would be bankrupt. Just say no to higher taxes we should be able to function just fine without tax increases heck with years of record revenues we should be able to cut taxes. The monster has gotten too fat and needs to go on a diet.
If this is a bare bones budget, I’d hate to see a no holds barred all out spending document. A few things stand out. We are going to hire two more administrators to the tune of $326,000 which isn’t exactly chicken feed. We are supposed to believe that the new Grant Writer position will more than pay for itself with all the grants that will result. Another assumption is that the new photo camera enforcement system will not only pay for itself, it will bring in over $4,000,000 (that’s right 4M) in fines and forfeitures when that number last year was a little over $300,000. A careful reading of the budget presented will show you that 8.5 million dollars of the one time ARPA emergency money will be used to ALMOST balance the 2024 budget. In other words, what essentially is a windfall gift is being used to cover recurring expenses that are never going to go away. This is not a budget, it is a fairly tale sponsored by our current Mayor. A friend much smarter than I helped me interpret this document. He is in contact with the Council and I hope a majority of them listen to him.
Clinton I can’t agree more except the grant writer, why shouldn’t we take advantage of more dedicated funding? I say we don’t invest in anything unless we can get the better of other community’s around us to supplement our own extravignious wants, after all we contribute to that also. Plus it is a great excuse for us to contribute some of our more direct taxes on things that will cost us more in the long run. Sad state of affairs if you ask me, what are we to do when tax revenue declines, are we to raise taxes to the point only the wealthy and the government subsidized can afford to live here? Seems our local regional and state government want to get rid of the people in the middle to create a society that few can survive without government subsidies. Greater government dependence will be our downfall. Venezuela comes to mind. But I digress.
Jim, we should absolutely take advantage of more dedicated funding; if that can mitigate our skyrocketing property taxes that are squeezing the middle class out of house, home and existence. We are rapidly becoming a nation of only the extremely wealthy and the marginal paycheck to paycheck population. (Or three classes, if you count all the street dwellers with little to no income at all).
The way to get these grants is not to hire another expensive administrator. The way to benefit is to hire competent Dept. Heads to begin with and commission them to identify and appoint brilliant volunteers to write or help write the grants. That would cost next to nothing. I know three highly intelligent men right now who could help with those grants tomorrow, if asked, as they are already spending much time and some treasure to try to get some better government in this town. There are probably dozens more just like them if our leaders would do a little work to find them and reach out for their help. Instead our leaders and Dept. Heads seem to want to keep these “trouble makers” under control.
Right again high paid administrators should definitely be able to find and apply for grants and if not we should be looking for those that can. Maybe one of those people would be willing to give the administrators some lessons.
Grants? The Feds have changed the rule on how cities can use ARPA funds. The unspent ARPA funds can now be used for one-time projects, so long as it is spent by the end of 2026. Council had made funding plans under the old rules and now should revisit those plans in light of this “new grant”. Unspent ARPA is $6-8m??? Usually, grants are associated with a specific project, like the 5 Corners round about or “cross walk for kids” or “bike lanes”.
Council should immediately have public discussions and gather public input on what our citizens want to do with this very special one-time grant. How and where should we spend this? The public should have a large role in that decision.
Look at the bottom line of the chart above. Specifically, the “Ending Fund Balance”. 2021 $15m, 2022 $12m, estimated for 2023 is below $7m. Looks like we are spending our reserves?? The “outlook” for future years is $12m, $16m, $19m, $22m and $24m. That’s an increase of $5m, $4m, $3m, $3m and $2m respectively??
With all the current inflationary issues cited in the article, how can that be done?
Take a look at our property tax projections! In 2025 the outlook suggests a REDUCTION of $4.4m?? That’s more than $.25/1000 or around $200 for a $800,000 home!
How can we increase our reserves and reduce our taxes all at the same time?
Council needs to get to work on the budget and as they find out answers to some basic questions like those above, hopefully they will share them with the public. “What did they know and when did they learn it”??
It is hard to be Transparent if there is a lot of Smoke in the room.
The only reason my wife and I can pay our real estate property taxes every year is that we have reserves in other investments. Our retirement incomes alone would not cover all our expenses and property taxes. If our home was not owned free and clear, we could not meet our property taxes. If we ran our own finances like this city runs theirs we would soon be bankrupt, just like our city will be if it doesn’t do things that will have to raise all our property taxes or drastically cut city services. It’s all a vicious circle and we’ve been electing the wrong people to manage it for some time now. The chickens are coming home to roost this year.
Without the ability to get into the details here because of word limits, there are a few items buried in the budget worthy of attention.
First, we’re out of money! The $6.6M ending fund balance in 2023 in the above chart is actually below our financial reserve policy of $8.9M. Saying it differently, we’re spending funds saved for fiscal emergencies before the end of THIS year.
Second, our ARPA funds are proposed to be used to bail out our General Fund and the deficit spending this administration has amassed over the last few years. So, we get no tangible benefit from these funds as they were intended to provide.
And third, but by far not least, mayor Nelson’s budget curtails funding of our Fire protection contract in 2025. Yes, you read this right. As proposed, no budget for fire protection after 2024. He lays this at the feet of the City Council. What he’s not telling you is that we need to pass a new tax levy if we want fire protection and EMS service after 2024. That’s his approach to solve the problem he created.
If you don’t believe me, just reach out to our mayor for clarification on his proposed budget for 2024.
Jim can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Mayor Nelson and his staff are assuming that our next Council will just go along with their recommendation that we fully join South County Regional Fire Authority rather than keep contracting their services. We gave up our own fire department with the notion that millions of dollars would be saved in terms of administration costs based on some long range financial calculations done at the time of the decision. Looks like that hasn’t turned out too well in practice; with the added problem that we don’t have direct control over what we can get for what we can afford now. Regional Fire has an opt. out clause of two years if they decide they don’t like the terms they originally agreed to until 2030 I believe. Bottom line is we need to stop wasting money on projects and people we don’t need and get a handle on at least the minimum services that we do need provided by our City. Change at the top probably won’t solve everything but it can’t hurt at this point to try someone new in some of our elected positions.
Clint,
The mayor’s proposed budget does not have funding in it for fire protection beginning in 2025. That’s his approach to balancing the budget – eliminate fire service. So yes, he’s assuming the Council will vote to join the Regional Fire Authority at, as of now, an unknown cost to the citizens. A new tax levy would need to be approved by the citizens in 2024. The mayors proposed budget still spends lavishly in spite of his “bare bones” claims.
Clinton:
As you likely know, the contract with Fire District 1 began in 2010. It is a fact that our city enjoyed more than one million dollars in savings each year for at least the first several years after that. I don’t know what the situation has been for the past several years.
Hi Ron. I know you are right about the facts of short term savings right after the switch to South County Fire Contracting. lt looks to me like this perceived savings an became and illusion after South County Fire came out with the premise that we were being over served under the contract. It appears to me that what has actually happened is they low balled the real costs to get our business and the assets of our own Fire Dept. A bit of bait and switch perhaps. You probably disagree, and you may be right, but I think it was a big administrative mistake to give up so much local control of something so vital to our public safety.
Adding city personnel, like the Climate Commish, only adds to the size of the local pricey administrative state. This means that Edmonds will be shackled with salary increases, benefit increases, etc. over the long haul.
We do not need more sunk cost administrators in these times.
…Just sayin’
Another discussion I had with a friend later today, who has great knowledge on the subject, confirms to me that Ron W. is right about switching to Regional Fire Service being the most economical thing to do at the time and it did really save Edmonds taxpayers money, so I stand totally corrected on that aspect of this discussion.
The increased costs, presently. are basically the result of inflation in salaries and benefits of the fire fighting personnel. Future fire service origination will soon become a hot topic for us and our choices for obtaining it will be limited. There will be technicalities about how fire service costs are calculated and our Mayor and City Council Members will need to be totally on the ball and transparent on how we should best proceed. Citizens will have to be advised on how to vote to get the best and least expensive services for their taxpayer dollars. Fear tactics may be used to try to influence voting. Just be fore warned fellow citizens.
Thank you Clinton. I’m also not always right.
Joining the RFA will very likely cost taxpayers more than contracting. I just did some checking to verify that the RFA has the same tax rate for all of its participants. I checked Lynnwood assessments and Mill Creek’s. The average home value in Lynnwood is $643K, for Mill Creek its $947K; the tax rate for each is $1.08. The average for Edmonds is $918K – well above the RFA’s average. So we’d end up paying more than most in the RFA. City Council needs to spend considerable time analyzing this issue.
Sometimes things should not just be “all about the money” in my view. I think proudly having our own name on something as important and personal as fire and medical aid should have been a consideration as well as the number of beans in the jar.
A few years ago, working in a volunteer capacity, I had an interaction with Regional Fire Personnel where the name on the fire truck did matter in terms of the needed response at the time. I had to get a little nasty to get the proper response action from them in terms of them owning the problem or not. I realize that doesn’t prove anything; but there is something to be said for the concept of pride in and protection of a Valued City vs. a certain number of square miles.
Part of the deal negotiated by city council in 2009 was that Edmonds Fire Department was to remain on all of the equipment. It did remain for some years then for some reason unknown to me it vanished.