The City of Edmonds will host two public workshops Thursday, May 22 to get public input on levies, projects, programs and process surrounding the city budget deficit. City leaders will share information on current financial constraints and what they have heard from residents about service levels. They will also discuss other revenue-generating ideas. Council and city staff held an all-day retreat May 10. My Edmonds News detailed the day-long discussions in a story earlier this week.
Mayor Mike Rosen, city councilmembers and city staff will be present to share details and be a resource for information. This is the first of several planned workshops.
Budget and Property Tax Levy Workshops
Thursday, May 22, 2025
3-4 p.m. and 6:30-8 p.m.
Edmonds City Hall, Brackett Room
121 5th Ave. N., Edmonds
A Zoom view-only option is available for City of Edmonds open public meetings. Residents can also join by phone: US: +1 253 215 8782 The webinar ID is 957 9848 4261.
Share the pain! You’re asking residents to make sacrifices, budget cuts; do the same.
City of Edmonds should make some short term cuts, until we get new revenue streams. Some options below:
1. What’s the status of the ~$8m owned to us by the Regional Fire Authority?
https://myedmondsnews.com/2025/01/reader-view-wheres-the-money/
2. If the RFA doesn’t pay up, across the board pay cuts of 6% (this is common in both public & private sector, happened to me twice, avoid layoffs, reinstate down the road, plus 1 time bonus).
.Rough savings for 25′ & 26′ – $2.7 Million
.it should be noted, Edmonds city salaries are ~30% higher than regional average
https://govsalaries.com/salaries/WA/city-of-edmonds
3. Petition state to end pension spiking (27 other states have).
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/inflated-seattle-public-pensions-for-retirees-cost-tens-of-millions/
4. Develop new revenue streams apart from property taxes
5. GoFundMe fundraiser for this wanting to help fill the deficit.
5,107 residents made it clear in the RFA annexation vote that they wanted more transparency from the Mayor and Council, more truth, accountability, and fiscal management. How is Council going to earn back the trust of 5,107 residents when you violated State election laws and used taxpayer money to advocate for annexation? Why are you not undertaking proper due diligence on peer city fire/ems ‘best practices’ to show residents how the City can save $45 million in RFA taxes over 5 years?
Why are you not recommending that the police department can save $5 million per year by using the Sheriff’s office for economies of scale, just like you advocated for the RFA? Shoreline residents pay 30-40% less for equivalent police services. Officers have Shoreline logos on police cars/uniforms and more career opportunities in the larger County Sheriff’s office.. Shoreline contracts for custom services. Former police chief Bennett ran the King County contracting program for years and did substantial research to prove 40-50% County Sheriff cost savings vs. city-run departments. RFA fire/ems is all talk about delivering economies of scale. Their inept, self-serving management only pads firefighter salaries and doesn’t deliver any cost savings like the County Sheriff does! Get these two tax escalating elephants on the table and do some proper due diligence to find a better way to reduce taxes $14millon/yr! https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-45-million-in-new-taxes
5,107 angry people didn’t get what they wanted and don’t have trust in their local government. I’m curious to know what the other 26,457 (84%) of registered Edmonds voters (stakeholders) think? Are we weighing trust in government on a 16% portion of the electorate?
Jeremy, you’ll only get an answer from 42% electorate.
https://snohomishcountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/133653/April-22-2025-Special-Official-Results?bidId=
Nick, that’s a bummer of a participatory number given the impacts of big-ticket items. I wonder how we change things locally to garner greater participation.
An even more intriguing question would be, is our elected officials supposed to be legislating off of a 16% portion of the electorate or are they supposed to be legislating from the broader city base?
Jeremy
5,107 voters were not ‘angry people.’ They were disappointed that the Mayor and Council used ‘back of envelope’ calculations to determine that the RFA’s $9 million cost increase for the same fire/ems services was the ‘low cost’ and ‘preferred’ fire/ems solution. The RFA could answer no questions justifying that cost increase. The Council chose to spend $200,000 of taxpayer money to advocate for annexation, and the firefighters’ union spent $50,000 to do the same. The campaign materials supplied by each were designed to scare and confuse residents into thinking they would lose fire protection if they voted ‘no’ on annexation. Not exactly a fair and neutral approach to elections. That’s why the State Public Disclosure Commission ruled the City violated election laws. 5,107 voters represented 35% of all who voted, not 16%. When you have that large a ‘minority’ vote, you should be figuring out how to regain their trust and how to get them on your side for future tax levy lifts! The Council refused to do proper due diligence on alternative, less costly, ‘best practices’, peer city fire/ems business models – and expect taxpayers to pay $45 million in new RFA taxes over 5 years. They chose to confuse and scare voters to win the RFA election. How do their actions serve the ‘broader city base?’ Make your voice heard: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-45-million-in-new-taxes
Actually, there’s no shame in acknowledging that, in addition to being disappointed, at least some of us “NO” voters are in fact angry about the RFA debacle that will result in a whopping and largely unjustifiable property tax hit and the likely (and for all intents and purposes involuntary) displacement of some long-term homeowners and other residents who will no longer be able to afford the staggeringly high cost of the ever-increasing property taxes to continue to live here . . . now THAT is a shame.
Bill, same question above applies, and I’ll even give the situation the benefit of the doubt and change the percentage to voters who participated. So, are our elected officials supposed to be legislating off of a 35% portion of the electorate or are they supposed to be legislating from the broader city base?
When the city staff and council meet it is called a “work session” when they invite the public for meetings it is called a “workshop”. Work session implies collaboration. Workshop implies teaching people who attend (I can only assume teaching people what they are going to do with little input).
A poorly ran city government looks for “revenue generating opportunities”, property taxes levies, and outsourcing everything (our city is really good at that).
Can someone help me with the math? $1,000 more in property taxes next year to cover fire/emt service, potentially $500 more per year in property taxes for a city levy, and, lastly, I can expect anything that the city charges for to go up (permits, licenses, etc.).
At some point we need to stop being creative, stop making emotional decisions, stop finding way to tax citizens more, stop outsourcing work and services, and start cutting the city budget.
It’s called a hiring freeze, spending freeze, and staff training freeze. It is basically what a lot of business owners in Edmonds have been doing since Covid demolished many of our businesses.
The City of Edmonds never stopped spending once Covid hit and hasn’t realized why they are earning less in sales revenue. People don’t have money to spend.
Please Edmonds stop spending it is the only answer.
Edmonds budget: Chop Cut ✂️ Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️Chop Cut ✂️
…Just sayin’
Will the Mayor FINALLY provide some transparency on actual spending by line item for all accounts from 2023 to 2025 so the public (and City Council) can actually see where unjustified budget increases occurred and where overspending occurred.
To date, all the public has seen is ‘lumped’ budget categories (such as professional services) for the General Fund without any mention of other accounts which some Program Directors use to continue the past culture of hiring expensive consultants for work and studies the City doesn’t need (e.g., Landmark purchase; more worthless Yost Park studies rather than necessary fixes). This ‘lumping’ also hides the gross overspending on contract attorney costs.
Further, the limited information approach allows “fear mongering” on loss of road repairs, unattended building maintenance, delays in building permits, closure of parks, etc. and makes it so much easier to sway taxpayer votes on increased property taxes when such municipal operations may actually be funded by other accounts.
Taxpayers need to be presented what the REAL cuts would have to be if a $6M levy fails – not the exaggerated presentations from City Programs that haven’t gotten the message that past overspending and unnecessary spending have to stop. Further, the public needs to see a reorganization plan that is commensurate with REDUCED budget and funds NECESSARY municipal services. And DISAPPROVE all prior year unspent budget carryover.
These are words of wisdom from the Edmonds Citizen of the Year.
There’s quite a lot of new detail in the council committee meeting packet for the 6pm meeting on Tues, May 20th about what the mayor plans to do if the new tax levy vote fails.
I echo Joe’s complaint about that actual spending info is grossly lacking. And I have been harping for a year now that actual headcount should be a regular published report. (It’s a poorly kept secret that even City Council doesn’t know what the actual headcount was in each department since about 2021. Blue Ribbon Commission didn’t know actual headcount either. ) At the council committee meeting today the Finance Director led a brief discussion on improvements to financial reporting, and agreed to report actual headcount by department, and number of vacancies (per budgeted positions) on a quarterly basis. Maybe we’ll see that actual headcount/vacancy data by July.
To expand on my comment and to add another question for the Mayor: the blue ribbon commission analyzed BUDGETED headcount trends in recent years, and a budget metric was useful for their purposes. My point in my comment in this article is that the City leaders (mayor, council) did not have department level reporting of how many people actually work for the city in recent years. When the mayor makes presentations stating ‘we cut X number of headcount’, he is referring to the budgeted headcount. he has never reported how many people the city hired in 2022-2023 and how many were laid off this year and last. (Spoiler-headcount went up significantly) And if you’re charged with financial mgmt responsibility for an entity with spending problems and revenue problems, you certainly need to be thinking about actual headcount. There were a significant number of vacancies, so looking at budgeted numbers is not good enough for financial management purposes. The lack of HR reporting metrics is concerning. Mr. Mayor- when can you publish a column in MEN and describe hiring ACTUALS and layoff ACTUALS by Dept, by fund since 2022? Mr. Mayor- are you analyzing out sourcing Payroll processing to ADP instead of keeping it in-house? You won’t be tied to the ERP implementation schedule- please get that crucial mgmt metric now.
Joe makes a great point here about these smoke and mirrors budgets that pass as some sort of meaningful accounting for where all the money is going. The waste and mismanagement is astronomical and now your self proclaimed “expert manager” even wants to actually hire another manager under him to do his job, while he does what? That’s a question the voters might want to ask him when he starts scaring you into voting for the tax hike which will only continue more of the waste, unless something changes drastically in your city government culture.
The spending that is almost totally unexplained is beyond belief. How was the ninth/100th. street do-over paid for? Where did we get the money to cover the cost over runs on civic field park when they trucked in tons of dirt and piping to fill in and drain where nature was trying to create a pond? Where has the money that was allocated for re-writing the city codes for the past 10 or more years gone, while the actual job has never been done? Why is there a state audit of city government for 2023 that is months over due that might explain or point out where the city is negligent or lacking in transparency in these budgets? I don’t care anymore, but you sure should.
I love Jeremy Mitchell’s comment about legislating to the majority and not the minority. The Mayor illegally hires a PR firm with money the city doesn’t have to sell all the gullible and literally scared people in town on the wonderful and superior merits of the RFA and how you couldn’t possibly re-form your own fire department without spending millions more than going with the RFA. He pretends this just all occurred in a vacuum with no manipulation on the part of your elected officials to get your votes. Man I’m so happy I will soon be out of this mess and most of all not having to help pay for the incompetence anymore, assuming the housing market here stays good for a few more months. If I had any brains, I’d be bragging the place up I guess, in the hopes of getting a few more dimes out of my old house.
If the Mayor really had a mind-control PR firm, we should be asking for a refund. 35% of the town is still furious, and the other majority thinks the RFA was the least worst of the options. Hardly a clean sweep of the gullible masses.
If you can figure out how to rebuild a fire department from scratch and sustain it on a shoestring budget, and doesn’t involve a fire bucket brigade, let us all know. Can’t keep thinking city services are like AriZona Iced Tea and that you get the same great taste in service for $0.99 regardless of the year or economy.
I do sincerely hope your house sells high. Maybe toss in a free fire extinguisher to sweeten the deal.
Hi Jeremy, A larger city with a higher fire risk did just that, Placentia, CA. Saved $2M / yr & improved response times. I don’t see that happening in Edmonds, takes leadership, courage. Edmonds consultant in 2016 provided a plan to save millions and improve response times, the fire union fought back and won.
https://myedmondsnews.com/2016/04/report-edmonds-fire-ems-services-can-improve-performance-reduce-costs/
https://californiaglobe.com/fr/placentias-independent-fire-department-saves-millions-and-improves-service/
Conflict of interest in this town, the fire union was the largest single donor in the Edmonds 2023 election & ~$53,000 on the April election.
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/689200#independent_expenditures
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/1550#independent_expenditures
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/candidates/689333#independent_expenditures
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/committees?jurisdiction=CITY+OF+EDMONDS
Take care,
Nick
Clint, if I may add to your comment.
This time around the administration has enlisted Keep Edmonds Vibrant (KEV) to push their agenda. All one needs to do is look at their approach. Talking points about city “cuts” of $7 million dollars and we can’t cut any further. Where have we heard that before? Show me in the budget where the $7M in cuts are. They’ll also be presenting the results of a community online poll that they conducted at the next council meeting. How did they get preferential treatment to make a presentation at a City Council meeting? Will others with maybe a different scenario for council consideration be given an equal opportunity? I suspect the rest of us will be given our obligatory three minutes during audience comments. You think this process is rigged?
Just listen to how many times the word “vibrant” comes out of city hall. The mayor and City Council don’t want to hear from the rest of us. They don’t want to share the pain of this financial recovery process across a broader group who also benefit from Edmonds. If they did, they would have enacted other revenue generating ideas before now. As usual, they pushed this off until it’s hair on fire and the only way out for them is a high property tax increase. Shameful.
Rigged is an understatement. At the ‘budget workshop’ meeting tonite – I explained how the City could save taxpayers $45 million in new RFA taxes over the next 5 years. I was told by the Mayor, CM Nand, and CM Olson that they had done adequate due diligence and found no other fire/ems service business model that was as good as the RFA. They said they were sticking with the RFA and residents would be able to vote for Board members, so they would have a say in how the RFA funds and operates the business. What a joke! They did zero due diligence on peer cities other than the contrived Fitch study which had a couple pages on Edmonds vs. RFA vs. Shoreline – and zero analysis of ‘best practices’ peer cities. CM Nand made a big deal out of the $45K they spent on the Fitch study – and of course said nothing about the $300K they spent getting the ballot measure and illegally advocating for annexation with the PR firm. The Mayor and CP Tibbott made a big deal out of the $8M shortfall that would accrue if voters defeated the $6M tax levy lift in November. An Edmonds $12M fire/ems operation would save taxpayers $8M/yr. I was not allowed to rebut the Council. Vote ‘no’ on any tax levy increase! https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-45-million-in-new-taxes
Jeremy-
35% is a ‘super minority’ – and the Council and Mayor should be using common sense and due diligence before they make tax-doubling decisions based on ‘back of envelope’ calculations or their desire to offload all fire/ems costs on taxpayers, rather than the City. They were give tons of data that showed the RFA had zero evidence of economies of scale, tons of evidence of sub-optimal staffing vs. the 85% of 911 calls that were for medical emergencies, zero evidence of justifying cost of service going from $12.5M to $21M in one year, zero evidence that peer cities’ best practices could not deliver equivalent fire/ems services for $12M/yr, and zero evidence that the RFA was a good partner (i.e., unjustified cost increases and withholding $7-$8 million in hospital transport credits for 6+ years). Their lack of due diligence, lack of transparency, lack of fiscal responsibility, and lack of accountability is the tragedy of situation – not whether they should take their cues from a broader base of voters.