The mood was somber in the Edmonds City Council chambers Tuesday night when Mayor Mike Rosen shared details of the $1.8 million in budget reductions aimed at helping address the city’s budget shortfall. The mayor also presented a proposal for citywide reorganization, which would include combining the work of some departments, adjusting job responsibilities and appointing a top-level city administrator to manage much of the workflow.

Rosen first talked about the budget cuts, which include a combination of layoffs, retirements, resignations, reductions in hours, positions left unfilled or new people being hired at a lower salary. After his presentation, he reiterated the human cost behind the reductions.

“This is an unfortunate position that the city is in,” he said. “We have to find a way to get out of this for the city, and find ways to budget and raise the kind of revenue we need to have the city that we all love and want to maintain.”

Rosen, who took office in 2024, noted that Edmonds added 38 new full-time equivalent (FTE) employees from 2021-24. With the latest round of cuts, there has been a reduction of 43 FTE workers, he said. Based on these new reductions, Edmonds — at 236 employees — will have the second-lowest FTE per-capita — 5.5 — relative to nearby comparable cities. Only Shoreline is lower, at 4.2.

The mayor’s report was in response to a directive from the Edmonds City Council as part of the 2025-26 biennial budget process to find an additional $1.5 million in 2025 city budget reductions by March 11, along with $230,000 in reductions for the police department’s command staff. Councilmembers didn’t specify what would be cut but instead directed the mayor to report back on how the reductions will be achieved — guided by the city’s budgeting by priorities process based on residents’ feedback.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Rosen explained that he was able to find an extra $300,000 — making the total $1.8 million instead of $1.5 million, which will give the city a cushion for revenue shortfalls it may face this year. Two of those shortfalls were discussed Tuesday night: Sales tax revenue is coming in lower than projected and the installation of red-light traffic cameras at two intersections — approved by the council as part of budget deliberations last year — has been delayed, reducing revenue by $60,000.

In addition, any budget savings beyond the $1.5 million can be put toward the council’s directive to reduce the general fund budget by $2 million in 2026, Rosen said.

The information on budget reductions wasn’t provided in the council packet ahead of time, but councilmembers were given handouts so they could follow along. One resident who attended the meeting expressed frustration that no handouts were available for the public so they could also review paper copies during the presentation. The PowerPoint from Tuesday’s meeting can be found here.

You can see a full list of the 2025 reductions here, but some examples include:

– $7,397 from the mayor’s office, as Rosen is donating the portion of his salary representing furlough hours other employees are taking. (The salaries of the mayor and councilmembers are set by an independent salary commission and aren’t subject to furloughs.)

– $22,227 from human resources, due to a reduction in employee hours.

– $81,460 from administrative services, with the elimination of a public records assistant.

– $885,203 total in the police department, by not filling positions left vacant due to layoffs, resignations or retirements or simply leaving them open.

– $145,061 total in the planning department due to staffing and professional services reductions.

– $300,000 total in public works engineering and facilities for staffing and other miscellenous reductions, including some energy conservation savings.

– $112,500 in information technology by eliminating the city’s webmaster.

Rosen noted that the police department is on its way to meeting the council-directed $230,000 reduction in command staff with the retirement earlier this year of Chief Michelle Bennett. One of the department’s two assistant chiefs, Rod Sniffen, is temporarily filling the chief’s role until the department can hire a permanent chief. The mayor has already said that the chief’s position would be a promotion from within and after that hiring decision has been made, the command staff will be further reorganized.

Next came Rosen’s proposal for reorganizing the city’s structure, with the goal of increasing collaboration and enhancing efficiency. (You can see the proposed reductions in the handout here.) The first major change would be creating a city administrator position, which would report directly to the mayor and would be filled by current Community, Culture and Economic Development Director Todd Tatum. When asked by councilmembers the reasoning behind this new position, Rosen said that such a role would provide institutional memory and continuity when a new mayor is elected. It would also free him up to address other mayoral tasks, including spending more time in the community and working with regional partners.

Other proposed changes include:

– Combining the facilities functions from the public works and parks departments and having them in one faciilities group under parks.

– Moving events management into the parks department.

– Moving human services, which is now housed in the parks department, to the police department, which already includes a social worker and a domestic violence coordinator.

– Changing the name of the parks department to asset managment. With the facilities group included, it would be charged with “protection of our assets,” Rosen said in speaking to the name change.

– Changing the name of the planning and development department to community placemaking, because “that is what we’re doing,” Rosen said. “It’s not just about permitting and building, it’s about creating a place.” Economic development — the role Tatum now fills — would be moved to the placemaking department but that position would be downgraded from a department director to a manager level. To help fund the new city administrator role, the manager position wouldn’t be filled for the remainder of 2025 and the council could make a decision later in the year about whether it should be filled in 2026, Rosen said.

–  Changing the role of public information officer to include community engagement and renaming the position public engagement officer.

Four departments — police, finance, human resources and the city clerk — would continue to report directly to the mayor, while the remaining departments — asset management (parks), community placemaking, public works, public engagement, public records and information services — would report to Tatum.

Rosen said he hoped to make the organizational changes effective July 1, giving the department directors time “to think about their structure” and also ensure that staff has time for questions.

“The one exception to that might be the city administrator, maybe making that change a little bit earlier,” the mayor said.

Many of these proposed organizational changes would require council approval, and that process was outlined by Human Resources Director Jessica Neil Hoyson. (See more in the presentation here.)

Councilmembers’ reactions to the proposal ranged from enthusiasm to concern. Among them:

– Some councilmembers were opposed the idea of renaming the parks department as “asset management,” stating that would confuse the public. Among them was Councilmember Susan Paine, who had a similar concern about using community placemaking instead of planning and development. However, Councilmember Chris Eck said she liked the community placemaking concept.

– Councilmember Jenna Nand said she was opposed to the idea of having an unelected city administrator “having this level of control over city functions and city staff.” Rosen replied that Tatum would report to him and that if there were problems, the mayor would still be responsible.

– Councilmember Vivian Olson wondered about the salary ranges of the various department directors under the reorganization and what types of cost savings might be realized, noting that some directors might deserve more money with added responsibilities. HR Director Neil Hoyson said she had recommended to the mayor that a compensation review be be conducted for directors if the reorganization moved forward.

– Paine also requested that mayor provide more details on the reorganization costs per department, so councilmembers could better understand the financial implications of his proposal.

Council President Neil Tibbott suggested the council have a brainstorming session on department names, and Rosen said he welcomed that idea. Tibbott also reminded the council there would be a separate discussion at a future council meeting on revenue generation.

In other business Tuesday, the council:

– Received an update on the Main Street Overlay Project, which includes a pavement overlay, upgrading noncompliant ADA curb ramps and installing an eastbound bicycle lane along Main Street from 6th to 8th Avenues. City Engineer Rob English explained that the council approved the contract with CA Carey Corporation for $1,416,113 and authorized a 10% management reserve of $141,610.

However, during trenching and construction of stormwater improvements for the project, the contractor encountered sluffing along the trench walls due to sandy soils and depth of excavation. The sluffing also resulted in sections of existing pavement being undermined during construction. Additional trench backfill, compaction and pavement restoration will be required prior to the overlay work being completed, and staff is working with the contractor on pricing the extra work needed to complete the work, English said.

Additional funding may be needed to address the extra work, and staff recommended allocating $115,000 in stormwater funding to the management reserve from project savings on the city’s 2024 Stormwater Replacement/Rehabilitation Project completed last year. The council unanimously approved the recommendation.

– Passed an ordinance amending the number of authorized employee positions to include a seventh corporal in the police department. The council last week unanimously approved a proposal to promote a police officer to the position of corporal, temporarily giving the department seven corporals. City ordinance limits the department to six, but Acting Police Chief Rod Sniffen explained that a current corporal will be retiring in June, and the civil service authorization to hire another corporal expires in late March. If the authorization expires prior to hiring, the department will need to run another assessment process to identify another corporal — at a cost of between $20,000 and $25,000. Hiring a seventh corporal to fill the job for 68 days — until the other corporal retires — will cost the city about $3,600, Sniffen said.

– Reviewed the January and February 2025 monthly financial reports.

A presentation on Title 18 code updates for utilities on city right of way was postponed to a future meeting, with the date to be determined.