Nearly 100 people gathered at the Edmonds Waterfront Center Monday evening to hear Mayor Mike Rosen answer questions about the city’s budget crisis and the proposed annexation of Edmonds into the Regional Fire Authority (RFA).
Similar to the mayor’s state of the city address last month, Rosen highlighted how the city’s expenditures have grown by 44.9% over the past four years while revenues increased by 27.8%. The highest increase is for insurance, which has risen by 39% in one year ($558,000). Other major cost increases include utilities ($34,000) and fuel ($28,000).
Rosen pointed out that under state law, all cities in Washington state are limited to raising property taxes by 1% a year. “That 1% represented $107,000. That’s not even one-fifth of the increase for the insurance,” he said. “So even when the state [Legislature] talks about [allowing property tax increases to rise] 3%, that still doesn’t pay for the increased insurance. That’s part of the problem. So it is a setup for a slow death.”
State Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate last week proposed allowing local governments to levy a property tax increase of up to 3%, removing the current 1% cap.
As another example of rising costs increases, Rosen said that he discovered two weeks ago that the city would be facing a substantial increase for using software that hosts four city servers. Edmonds was paying about $2,041 for three years of use.
“We got a bill that said, yeah, it’s going to be $30,000 for one year because [the software company] got acquired by this conglomerate that controls 80% of the market, and that’s what they’re going to charge now,” Rosen said.
Rosen said in the last three years, the city had overestimated how much revenue it would generate, leading to significant budgeting issues when actual income fell short of projections. To balance the 2024 budget, which was created in 2023, the city council depleted the city’s reserves and also relied on remaining federal ARPA funds and savings assumptions. This led the council to approve a budget with an $800,000 deficit, Rosen said.
When other factors are included in the budget equation, the City of Edmonds had a $20.4 million deficit in early 2024.
The city is also facing a backlog of maintenance and repairs of public buildings, sidewalks, ramps and other infrastructure that would cost the city more than $800 million, based on a 2018 study.
In addition, the city needs to pay back an internal loan of $6 million in two years, starting in 2026. To address the budget shortfall, the city has employed a number of cost-cutting measures, including staff reductions, furloughs and not filling open positions.
Rosen pointed out that the city has a lower number of full-time employees per 1,000 residents than other cities with similar populations. In 2005, Edmonds had 273 full-time employees compared to 236 in 2024.
“We terminated people. We asked individuals if they would be up for retirement, and some did,” he said. “We did furloughs again…but it took 12 different steps to get there. So the actual savings was $1.8 million.”
Rosen then discussed the proposal now before voters that asks whether Edmonds should annex into the RFA. Edmonds had been contracting with the RFA (also known as South County Fire) but at the end of 2023, South County Fire exercised a two-year cancellation clause — and the contract will expire at the end of this year.
The mayor said that after examining several options for providing the city with fire and emergency medical services (EMS), the Edmonds City Council determined that annexing to the RFA is the lowest cost option to maintain the city’s current level of service.
If Edmonds were to restart its own fire department, it would need to buy rolling stock – such as fire trucks – and other equipment, train a full staff for eight months to one year, and maintain the fire buildings and equipment.
Rosen estimated that the startup cost for a new fire department would be $30 million, and the annual cost of running the department would be about $21 million. If voters reject the RFA annexation, Edmonds would need to write an additional $8.9 million check to fund fire services at the current level on top of the $12.1 million that the city is already paying. The fire services contract is projected to surge from the current $12.1 million to about $21 million.
Following his remarks, Rosen and South County Fire Chief Bob Eastman answered questions from more than a dozen people in the audience and online. They included the following:
Q: In your recent state of the city address, you [Rosen] said that our financial problems are more than just paying for fire and paramedic services. Since there’s been so many questions, why not take a year, sign on to an extension of our current contract and explore other options during that time?
Rosen: “So I shared with you the options we explore, and I’m not sure what other options might exist beyond the ones that I talked about because, you know, just continuing to contract, finding somebody else to provide a service…I don’t know what else to add to that. And as I shared with you the immediate impact that’s going to be something like $15 million if we wait a year, and I don’t know what would be different at the end of that year.”
Q: Why can’t Edmonds pursue separate service for EMS from fire? (Based on data that 84.1% of the calls in 2024 is for EMS)
Eastman: “We have a base number of firefighters you need just for the fires that happen, and so could you have less firefighters? Maybe a couple. I would say that you look at agencies that have it split. Everett is a prime example. The City of Everett has Northwest Ambulance as their private ambulance. And if you look at their 2025 budget, they’re $1.86 per $1,000 to the fire service. The agencies that do bring in a non-fire based system to do their transports, the fire department still goes [on a call]. It’s still the first to arrive on the scene, and it’s the private ambulance that does the transport.
Q: In 2022, the Parks, Recreation and Open Space report says that by 2035, Edmonds will need an additional 125 acres of parks and open space to accommodate our population. Based on the city’s own written proposal, isn’t that contrary to the stated goal for the city to consider selling the Frances Anderson (building) and other properties?
Rosen: “So I think in their [the parks] report, it also talked about that was an incredibly aspirational number. So there’s that, but I’m not gonna disagree because, as I’ve said, I like green spaces, and I would have liked to have been in a position to work. The second is that if we’re going to talk about green spaces and open spaces, [and the need for an additional] 125 acres, I could argue that South County Par — which is in our city limit — is like 108 acres there. We also have Esperance Park, which isn’t counted [because it’s owned by Snohomish County]. We also have churches and schools with green spaces and play areas that we also do not count. If we’re going to talk about green spaces and [have] access to them, I think we should be more inclusive.”
Rosen said that having green and open spaces is not just about acres per 1,000 people but also about equity and accessibility. “We have areas in this city that if you were to map it out in terms of how far people have to walk, there are areas that aren’t going to show up,” he said. “They’re park deserts where we just don’t have any [parks], and that’s wrong.”
Q: I get where you can cut [in the budget]. Once you’ve done that, what are the other revenue sources? Because we all want the sidewalks, we all want the police department, but we gotta be able to afford to pay for it.
Rosen: “On May 9, the council will be having a retreat, and hopefully we’ll be rolling up our sleeves and going into some of them [the revenue sources] more. We have not been at market rate. We have a number of fees that we [have charged for] a really long time. So in some cases, it’s like parks. Some of their programs have not been necessarily competitive. They introduce programs now that only cover their complete cost of staff and overhead. So we’re making sure that those do cover their costs instead of having to be supported.”
Rosen said the city is also looking at the fees the city is charging and is also considering higher impact fees for transportation and parking. “There’s like 100 [fees]. None of them are enough to get us out of this. But together they spread it, and they all help, which would reduce, hopefully, the need to put all the weight on the property tax,” he said.
Q: How do you see us balancing the budget? It seems like we’re going to be forever in the hole. So how do we even make sense of this as citizens without like itemized line budgets?
Rosen: “I do believe we are going to get out of this. So certain things have to happen first, and then it’s what are the things we can delay again or do differently for a while. The Frances Anderson Center, just the HVAC system in there is a $9 million problem. For those people who love swimming outside, your sports pool [at Yost Park] is getting close to its end of life, and I think it’s 2030. It’s [about] $27 million in cost of replacement. So these are all choices now.”
Rosen said that capital projects can be funded by bonds, but the “day-to-day stuff” such as police, fire and parks, is paid through the general fund. While “the big projects on our streets don’t necessarily come from the general fund,” the mayor said, items like paving and ADA ramps do. “The elected officials everywhere in the country want to get reelected. So they’re not going to be the ones who say we need more taxes, and this is what it’s really costing. And what they do is kick the can down the road, and that ends now. This is what it costs. This is our problem.”
Rosen said he believes that the City of Edmonds is “more fiscally alert now” than in the past in terms of understanding the city’s finances. “And now [the city is] empowered to make these kinds of choices, and we’re using things like budgeting by priorities,” he said. “And at some point, we’ll have metrics where we can be held accountable. We’re going to have to figure out the revenue streams to pay for. And those are the choices that we make, and if we can’t fund it, something’s got to go or we shut it down for a long time until we can open it again.”
You can watch the video recording of the event here.
The Mayor’s comparison of the city’s headcount in 2005 with 2024 is not valid because we had a fire department in 2005.
If I ran my household like the city runs itself I would be homeless. Now the city wants us to bail them out. Best I can figure the city wants to raise about 21 million dollars a year mostly off the backs of property owners. This starts with a 100% increase with annexation. And then a levy in the fall of about another 100%? Yearly. I know the city cut the cream of the top of spending but is hardly feeling the pain they are asking of property owners to shoulder. I am a no vote for now gonna have to get the city to come to the table. The way it looks if the city gets what it wants we would be paying about double the property tax rate of Lynnwood.
I keep seeing notes about the VMWare/Broadcom purchase, and how their server virtualization costs them $31K instead of $2K. If you don’t like it – move to a different cloud provider, perhaps, instead of complaining?
That’s also 1/10th of 1% of the 20M deficit – so stop hiding behind it. Where are these cost overruns coming from and what is being done to review and address them?
This needs to stop. The Mayor and City Council must move beyond merely admiring the problem and start addressing it. Over the past five years, our city has gone from being fiscally stable to teetering on the edge of insolvency. Despite having opportunities to prevent this outcome, they continue to dig the hole deeper.
“On May 9, the council will be having a retreat, and hopefully we’ll be rolling up our sleeves and going into some of them [the revenue sources] more.” “Hopefully”? That’s exactly the problem—they continue to rely on hope instead of developing a concrete plan. Why weren’t these revenue ideas addressed a year or more ago? Talking about kicking the can down the road and now it’s happened under your watch too, Mr. Mayor. Past council presidents also bear responsibility for failing to set legislative agendas that prioritize oversight and decisive action.
We need a reset. Focus on understanding the root cause, breaking it down into manageable parts, and taking actionable steps, rather than dwelling on the issue itself. The annexation into the RFA should be paused, bringing them into the conversation to help develop less costly solutions. Our property tax dollars are not the only stable funding source to address these issues. Let’s collaborate to ease the burden on property taxes and distribute responsibility among everyone who benefits from our city.
As usual Jim O, great insight and truth on your part and my only nit-pick on what you say is that I think the problems we are facing now go way back before five years ago. We’ve done years of using public funds, staff time and grants (sometimes with strings attached) to build a bunch of fun and entertainment oriented projects while ignoring how we were going to pay for the upkeep and on going endowment for some of these assets and Creative District type investments. We got sold an untested new waste management technology that still doesn’t work as intended and is costing us thousands in overruns. That was more than five years ago I believe. We’ve ignored vital city needs while doubling down on all the fun factors and sooner or later that behavior and bad financial judgement catches up to anyone – private citizens or city municipalities. Now the city is selling us the idea of Fire/EMS service that suddenly doubles in cost. As Jim F. says, if we lived our own lives like this we would be broke and homeless.
The “cost of living” increases hits at the city level, too. It’s wild how often people cite mismanagement as the sole source of the problem while actively ignoring the fact that the costs of services and goods have shot up, and these things are not within the control of the people administering the city.
“The highest increase is for insurance, which has risen by 39% in one year ($558,000). Other major cost increases include utilities ($34,000) and fuel ($28,000).”
Refusing to allow more housing density, and thus eliminating the option to gather more taxes from a distributed base, means the tab for the increasing costs is concentrated to those who currently own property. It’s time to accept that everything costs more, including the goods and services required to run a city. Being hyper exclusive comes at a cost that increases year-over-year just like everything else. A fixed income and fixed expenditures mindset is catastrophic in today’s world.
Hi Tara, you have hit a valid point that all levels of government and the rest of us are facing. The state’s reliance on sales and property taxes is a major part of the problem. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any interest in considering graduated income taxes which would increase as pay increases over time with inflation increases. Some day maybe there will be a light bulb go off and it will make sense.
Tara, there is certainly some validity to what you are saying here but you over simply the great results you are predicting from greater density for example. As you say greater density brings in more taxation but it also creates more needs for city services that will pretty much eat up whatever the greater tax proceeds are, so you are back to square one with that, plus you are messing up the livability factor for people who moved here for the bigger yards, open spaces and parks as well as some respect for the natural environment. Greater density won’t solve anything – it will exacerbate problems. The real problem in Edmonds is for over 40 years now we have built and rebuilt parks, wasted money on pie in he sky stuff like the Connector (road into the marine sanctuary of all stupid on the face of it ideas), the Missing Link beach walk (that messes with the Salish Sea ecology and hurts fellow citizens), Landmark (that wasted thousands in staff time and the give away of $100K by our Council), a sales con job for state of the art waste management that still doesn’t work with thousands in over runs and now fire service that just has to double in cost in the space of a year. Bad city government planning is just that.
As it turns out in a split-rate property tax setup, the revenue generation per acre of land when you compare single family to mixed use, denser land use produces 30-100 times more tax revenue per acre than single family and has less long term liabilities attached to it. A blank parking lot actually doesn’t produce a whole lot for a city, but we complain about not having enough parking and we need more blank parking lots. You may not like it, but land use reform does contribute a great deal to being able to generate revenue that’s resilient and reduces long term liabilities overall. This has actually been the case for thousands of years if you look back at the evolution of how and why cities form. There’s cities starting to look at reevaluating the split rate setup and considering taxing single family homes more than denser land use areas that are more utilized and produce more. So you want the plush single family setup with your white picket fence and 1/4 acre yard, great, you need to pay more to keep that life style since it takes more long term liabilities to keep those land uses the way they are.
Interesting theory Jeremy. I think that is a lot of wishful thinking on your part. The more and more people you cram into smaller and smaller areas the more pressure you put on vital services like schools, police and fire, human waste management, roads and sidewalks and what parks and open spaces that do exist. I suspect my days remaining in your vision of a great Edmonds will be limited either by death or just plain property taxes making it more wise to sell out than to stay in such a mismanaged messed up city. I’m growing quite weary of watching the down hill slide from the paradise that Edmonds was when I first moved here so long ago. I feel lucky, though, to have experienced the good times, so to speak.
I genuinely appreciate your passion for the Edmonds you remember, Clinton. The “Deadmonds” Nostalgia is a powerful lens, but it can sometimes obscure the realities of change and growth. Yes, increased density brings challenges, but it also offers opportunities and support to ease some of the financial pains we’re all up in arms over these days. Take a look at our annual street overlay costs and tell me if that’s a sustainable trend with the tax base we have today. If I had a vision for the city it isn’t to stop change, but to manage and plan it wisely so we can retain the beauty we all invested in. It’s very doable, but the planning part of it unfortunately has been lacking here for decades resulting from denial that we have to do something.
Infrastructure, is not a zero-sum game. Smart planning, investment, and leadership, growth can fund improvements rather than strain them. I don’t believe it’s wishful thinking to envision a thriving Edmonds that evolves to meet the needs of future generations while honoring its past, its just a matter of will and good governance that doesn’t operate on emergency and rear view mirror ordinances.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed your time here and hope you’ll keep engaging in the conversation, because I think your voice matters, even if we see the future differently.
Jeremy, I think many of us can agree that City needs to grow to remain vibrant and it’s going to cost money to maintain the city we love. But forcing residents into a bad deal that costs us too much for fire/EMS is going to make it more difficult to pass the levies that will be required to properly right the ship and restore our fiscal health because people will feel that they are tapped out. I support an eventual annexation to the RFA and I believe this is the best long term solution for Edmonds but this is just a bad deal and we can do better if we vote no and the city fights for its residents and refuses to accept the take it or leave it approach that the RFA is presenting. A better deal which would include significant increases in the use of the fire benefit charge as well as actions to control costs in the future will leave residents with more money in their pockets to support those other necessary levies that are coming.
Hi Jeremy, do you think this is a good time for Edmonds to annex the unincorporated Esperance area? Or maybe it’s too late. I live in the next neighborhood, and I’ve watched the significant amount of redevelopment happening. DR Horton’s townhouse project was very successful. Maybe the permitting, parks, and transportation impact fees that come with development have already been paid to the County. Did you see the photo in The Beacon of the DADU being lifted over the main house by a crane and placed in the back yard 2 weeks ago? Quite a lot of activity for a small neighborhood. As a member of the planning board, or just as a resident, do you think any of the Churches will sub divide and sell/lease part of their property in the next 2-3 years for housing development (like Edmonds Lutheran)?
I certainly hope the retreat is self funded. Otherwise I would suggest a conference room or council chambers. Thanks for the reminders Clinton of (the fairly recent history) Edmonds spending tons of money hiring consultants for lavish ideas that never materialized. I forgot about the Connector but now remember how it was positioned as a crucial life threatening need. I disengaged after the back and forth on redoing the street areas leading to the arts center. It was a long chain of projects (ad nauseam) for the bowl and creative district while my neighborhood has no sidewalks and probably never will. Edmonds has had a keeping up with the Jones mentality for years and now here we are, embarrassingly in debt, and having to make some hard choices. We’ll get through this with hopefully a lesson learned.
Tara, do you know what type of insurance premium has risen by $558,000? Is it the liability insurance that pays the settlement when we pay Chief Pruitt, or other legal disputes where the insurance company paid some/most of the settlement, or the giant cost to remodel the library after our rooftop garden caused extensive water damage? Or is is more like auto insurance where the policy holders across the nation are being charged higher premiums? What I’m getting at is that sometimes a higher insurance premium is a reflection fo the policy holder’s behavior, and sometimes it’s not.
I believe it is their risk insurance that increased because their rating decreased because of $$ issues i.e. greater risk for default
The City refuses to take the tough steps to reduce costs and manage the budget. Rather than spending $6 million in ARPA funds to increase staff and pay for ‘nice-to-have’ projects, the City should have used that money to invest in productivity enhancements. The City now has an opportunity to reduce fire/ems costs by $45 million over 5 years. Other cities of Edmonds’ population have managed to provide fire/ems services for the current $12M contract price with 3 fire stations and 52 firefighters. Firefighter wages comprise approx. 85% of operating costs. 52 firefighters equate to about $10M annual labor expense – and that translates to about $12M in total operating expense. The City has spent $300,000 to pay for and advocate a special annexation election , rather than spending a fraction of that to analyze multiple comparable cities that run their fire/ems operations for the current $12M, or $280/yr per resident. It’s time the City stops whining about tax levies and starts making investment decisions that will benefit taxpayers, rather than other RFA cities!
Mr. Krepick, What multiple comparable cities operate a full service fire/ems for $12M a year?
I’m also curious what other puget sound fire department can pull that off?
I’m also interested in knowing more about a viable or comparable example of how to move on w/o SCF and the RFA. If the solution
I’m also very curious to know as well. I’ve seen this thrown out quite a bit to support the argument that Edmonds is paying more than enough right now, but I don’t think there has been examples given of where we are seeing this happen.
Would you be willing to share that info Bill?
Bill/Bridget-
Part 1 of 3. Information on comparable fire/ems systems is a work-in-progress. It’s laborious to go through annual reports that have no standardized information and few performance metrics. I’m hoping annexation is defeated and the Mayor and Council will then do proper due diligence and find 6-10 cities the size of Edmonds that are running $12-$14M/year operations. A citizens’ blue-ribbon panel should draft the scope of research and focus on ‘comp’ peer cities, not systems like the RFA which are clearly mismanaged. Financial research should focus on finding other cities that have metrics for their fire/ems systems that reflect $12M operating cost for 43,000 population; 3 fire stations; 52 firefighters/ems techs; 6,500 calls/year. We need to find comp cities’ with benchmark data that meet Edmonds current contract for firefighters per 1,000 population; fire stations per 1,000 population; per 911 call cost; annual cost per resident. If Edmonds restarts its own service, it has many advantages like owning 3 operating fire stations; having access to County 911 service; having ability to buy fire/ems apparatus at market rates; having pool of firefighters who will be laid off by RFA; having a fresh start on dedicated paramedic service for 85% of 911 calls that are for medical emergencies; having a potential $2+ million/yr in offsetting revenues from Esperance, Woodway, hospital transport fees, and maybe Port of Edmonds.
Part 2 of 3. I have collected preliminary data on 5 cities that appear to operate as efficiently as Edmonds’ current contract, while 6 others are costly/inefficient like RFA’s $21M annexation price. Edmonds’ current $12M contract and 6,500 911 calls translate to $279/yr per resident, and $1,846 per 911 call. RFA’s $21M annexation price translates to $488/yr per resident and $3,231 per 911 call! Annual cost/resident and annual cost/911 call are starting points for necessary evaluation metrics. Edmonds needs to evaluate a handful of ‘best-of-breed’ peer fire/ems operations to understand if Edmonds can run a successful and cost-efficient fire /ems operation. Placentia, CA (pop 52,000) runs a $10 million fire/ems operation. That’s 20% lower cost for a 20% larger population! Placentia’s annual cost per resident is only $192! Bremerton (pop 46,100) has 3 fire stations and marine unit with $14.8M budget for almost twice as many 911 calls (11,318). That translates to $316/yr per resident, but only $1,308 per 911 call. Spokane has 230,000 customers, $72.5M budget, 16 fire stations, 51,977 call volume, minimal 10% increase in operating costs between 2019 and 2023 (compared to a 50% increase in Edmonds’ RFA contract costs in same period) – translating to $316/yr per resident and $1,395 per 911 call. These key metrics are respectively 35% and 65% less than what RFA annexation would cost Edmonds’ residents!
Part 3 of 3. Vancouver, WA has a unique private EMS ambulance contract with AMR that specifies $1,300 per 911 call cost – 60% less than RFA’s post-annexation cost. Eugene-Springfield, OR Fire Dept. has implemented a major cost reduction program creating new Single Role Paramedic and Single Role EMT positions for EMS response. These new positions are lower cost than the RFA’s traditional Dual Roll Firefighter/Paramedics. RFA shows no evidence of implementing efficiency initiatives. They haven’t changed staffing to address 85% of 911 calls that are medical. Edmonds can implement changes. Given that Edmonds can save upwards of $45 million in incremental RFA costs over 5 years, it behooves the Mayor and Council to do proper due diligence on other peer cities that have cost-effective fire/ems operations that could be replicated by Edmonds. A preliminary look at Mukilteo, Everett, Kirkland, University Place, Puget Sound Fire Authority, and Poulsbo have determined that their per resident costs and per call costs do not reflect ‘best-of-breed’ cost and performance metrics required for a successful Edmonds’ fire/ems business model. The Council’s research focus should be on cities that are delivering best-of-breed financial and operational fire/ems services and apply those cities’ business models to Edmonds. Spending less than $5 million dollars to restart an Edmonds’ fire/ems operation to save $45M over 5 years is a compelling investment!
Placentia has 2 fire stations, very few vehicles, and in addition to the small number of fire fighters they use part time and reserve fire fighters and their cost per call is approximately $3900. Bremerton’s average salary for fire fighters is nealry $40,000 less that South County. Spokane salaries are on average $20,000 less than South county and the cost of living is 11% less than the national average while Snohomish County cost of living is 31% higher. Cost per call can be a factor but a more important measurement is response time to a call. Saving a life is more important than saving a dollar.
The arguments will continue between folks for or against the RFA.
In the article Mayor Rosen says it will cost 30 million to start our own fire service with an expected annual budget of 21 million to start; exactly what we’ll pay for the RFA without the 30 million outlay.
I suppose the city could ask South County to close one of the 3 fire staions and save money that way. I wonder what the residents in the closed fire station would think of the increased response time to medical emergencies or fires. I don’t want them closing my fire station or yours.
Vote yes or no but vote.
The RFA is inefficient, so much so Edmonds consultant recommend changes that would result in 20% reduction in costs and improved response times.
Interestingly enough one of their recommendations was to move to a 2 station model, focusing on medical vs fire and that would improve costs and response.
https://myedmondsnews.com/2016/04/report-edmonds-fire-ems-services-can-improve-performance-reduce-costs/
https://edmondscandobetter.org/pdf/Fitch_Executive_Summary_Report.pdf
2 California Grand juries call out ineffectiveness of similar fire prioritized models such as the RFA.
https://ocgrandjury.org/sites/jury/files/2023-06/2022-05-20_Where%27s_the_Fire_Stop_Sending_Fire_Trucks_to_Medical_Calls.pdf
https://www.ems1.com/quick-look/articles/grand-jury-report-sharply-critical-of-emergency-response-protocols-CQGrFpjuPS34xlKp/
Real change and improvement is hindered by politics. Fire union number 1 donor in Edmonds 2023 election. City is cutting back, even our PD, no way should RFA escape the fiscal accountability.
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/845137#independent_expenditures
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/689333#independent_expenditures
There is no question that the city is in a fiscal crisis but the rush to throw its residents at the mercy of the RFA is not the right first step in solving that crisis. While it may be true that our current contract cost is too low, the RFA’s proposed hike to $21 million is excessive.
The total RFA budget for 2025 is ~$116 million. Of that total, ~$92 million are raised from property tax, the benefit charge and the Edmonds contract. The rest comes from transportation fees, GEMT, grants etc. The Edmonds contract cost of $12.5 million represents 13.6% of the total raised from taxpayers.
Edmonds population is 14% of the RFA population. In 2024, the 6334 calls in Edmonds were 16.4% of the RFA total. The 50 firefighters staffing the Edmonds stations represent 17.3% of the RFA operations staff up to and including Captains. Edmonds’ aggregate assessed value represents 19.8% of the combined AV of the RFA plus Edmonds.
These metrics do suggest that Edmonds could be paying more for fire and EMS services but, the RFA says that they want Edmonds to pay $21 million for fire/EMS service which is 22.8% of their current year taxpayer derived budget. How is this a fair share? None of these metrics support that level of cost to Edmonds.
Slightly off topic, but seems relevant considering one of the big ticket increases: the increase in insurance costs is a glaring example of how broken the insurance industry is in our country and unbelievably, it still barely gets any attention from anyone in government. I’m wondering how much worse it will have to get for consumers before anyone in a position of power will tell insurers and medical service providers that it has to stop. I suspect the City could, and probably will need to, look into cutting back their insurance benefits to their employees somewhat to get the cost increases in check.
Several things:
1. Can’t one shop around for cheaper insurance?
2. Cost of fuel is going down (except in Washington because of Inslee’s Cap and Trade), perhaps negotiate with the State??
I am ignorant in such things but thought I would ask..
…Just sayin’
Just wondered who is paying for the “retreat” on May 9… to come up with ideas….
Why does the city need a retreat…? Just saying..
As of June 25, 2024, the City had 279 full-time and 6 part-time employees, according to its 2024 Water and Sewer Improvement and Refunding Revenue Bonds Official Statement.
Scott – did that document use ‘budget’ figures or ‘actual’?
Something with all of this RFA stuff doesn’t pass the smell test? accountability?
…Just sayin’
Costs go up, but it takes leadership to control them. The City has been saying ‘yes’ for far too long. Shop around, every dollar counts.
I may be able to help with the 4 city servers, the cloud provider contract. Need a city IT contact. AWS & Azure pricing is very transparent. Easy to accurately estimate costs before signing up, licensing.
How much money have we spent in lawsuits, legal settlements? Petition the state to put some guardrails around litigation, payouts.
Scrutinize RFA spending, before you recommend annexing. Millions of dollars in overtime, nearly $1.5M in public relations budget, over reliance on expensive, inefficient vehicles, $90,000 in body armor (would like to know more, I know SFD needs it, but RFA?).
If you need to phone a friend, call Governor Ferguson, he’s an advocate for fiscal responsibility.
Here are two areas of revenue that Edmonds needs to pay more attention to:
1] Parking enforcement needs to regularly check (at least once a day) all the parking lots of retail Edmonds, as they are missing the constant violators (no placard, no license plate designation) of disabled parking spaces all over town. This is a huge dollar-value ticket, and a huge problem for disabled folks. Retailers don’t monitor it and don’t care.
2] Traffic enforcement is missing revenue from speeding tickets on Edmonds Way between the Bowl and the top of the hill, mostly due to the ferry traffic, but also to habitual speeders. Going both directions on this stretch, I have been passed illegally on the left and the right of my car, and I’ve been aggressively followed too closely by the same folks.
Maybe it’s a drop in the bucket, but maybe we need to be looking at all the drops., since things are so dire.
A “marketing consultant” probably hired by the dozens of thousands of dollars probably put that presentation together, pretty much like the RFA-annexation campaign? The city still has budget for that, isn’t it?
And, like one of the CMs said in a previous thread, “old men sitting in a lifetime-savings pile of cash must pay”, in a typical communist/authoritarian style speech. Of course, like in that regime style, corruption and incompetence will continue to grow and drag the taxpayers down. The RFA annexation, the high-density projects, etc. are just a start. And, as another poster said before “who cannot afford the taxes, move out”.
So, in the end, nothing changes. The city is at the mercy of wolves and the mayor and CC are just part of it, disguised in sheep skin.
Mario,
That was CM Olson. Her exact words were “(in some cases a retired business owner who is low or no income but sitting on a pile of money and other assets).” CM Olson was suggesting that someone applying for the Senior and Disabled Tax Exemption program, available to those with an income of $75,000/year or less, might be “sitting on a pile of money and other assets.”
Here are links to my comments in response.
https://myedmondsnews.com/2025/04/reader-view-opinion-a-lot-of-smoke-clouding-the-future-of-fire-decision/#comment-545556
https://myedmondsnews.com/2025/04/reader-view-opinion-a-lot-of-smoke-clouding-the-future-of-fire-decision/#comment-545567
CM Olson has yet to reply to my question- “How do you justify your position?”
I know insurance has gone up but such a big increase must have contributing factors are city employees having a lot of accidents there have been some high profile suits settled in recent memory could be more than we know. It seems in recent years cities are being sued for all kinds of things and making big payouts that didn’t used to be the case I am guessing the insurance company sees Edmonds as a big risk.
Regards Don Williams question of shopping for cheaper insurance the answer is
thr city is not likely to find cheaper comparable insurance. Insurers charge premiums based, in part, on loss experience of the insured.
Due the fiasco of the previous Mayor’s offering the Chief of Police job to an unqualified candidate and then retracting it, the City paid a large settlement covered by it’s insurer. This raises the City’s risk profile and results in larger premiums.
There are very few insurers willing to write coverage for cities because cities are viewed as deep pocket targets and therefore not great risks. If they do it is with much higher deductables per claim so the possible premium savings in the short run may expose the city to larger losses in the long run especially if the frequency of claims rise and the city has to pay more deductables for each claim.
Edmonds is insured via WCIA which is basically a self insurance risk pool of over 100 WA cities. I assume our premium has skyrocketed because of bad claims history in the recent years.
In an insurance pool like this the best way to reduce insurance cost over the long run is to reduce claims costs. This needs to start by replacing some of our seasoned department managers. Start with whichever departments have been hit with frequent claims lately.
they’re mostly gone already John Zipper. Only Angie (Parks and Rec), Todd (Econ Dev), and the HR director are left.
Yes, and they all left with a handsome bonus of our tax money to be sure they went quietly. This is what happens when PR is considered to be much more important than hard nosed management of scarce resources. You get what you elect at any level of government.
Let’s ask how we had people predicting future revenue paying them handsomely and have them be so wrong? My guess is our high paid administrators must be as dumb as a box of rocks, I mean if I can manage to survive on diminishing income for the last decade and still survive on just my 6th grade Edmonds district education, you would think the city would be at the minimum that capable with other people’s money..
Jeremy Mitchell,
You say, “the planning part of it unfortunately has been lacking here for decades resulting from denial that we have to do something.”
This lack of planning isn’t “from denial that we have to do something.” It’s from denial of legal and infrastructure costs resulting from Edmonds’ former Mayors’ failure to enforce our Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO), which has been going on “for decades.” For decades, the only plan of our Mayors/administrations has been to make sure that developers can build directly beside creeks, steep slopes, on or near wetlands, etc. There are innumerable examples of our Mayors’ failures to enforce our CAO. It doesn’t help that our code is still badly in need of a complete re-write. Just imagine how many more abuses our “Gem of the Puget Sound” will suffer from the excessive up-zoning that Council has approved, which includes NO consideration for our environmental assets. No one is objecting to more housing. It’s the what and the where that is being challenged. Our planning history shouldn’t be ignored or boiled down to a dismissive “Deadmonds” or picket fence mentality.
Jeremy, are you aware of this piece of Edmonds “planning” history?