EVERETT — Not everyone will get what they want in the city’s $651 million budget for next year.
Minor adjustments worth $1 million approved by a majority of City Council right before Thanksgiving restores the Fourth of July fireworks celebration, increases the library system’s budget to restore city library hours when these can reopen, and budgets funding for the Carl Gipson Senior Center after it was defunded in 2020 under a series of April emergency cutbacks.
These were not unanimous decisions. Earmarking $80,000 for the fireworks show was a 5-1 council vote at the Nov. 25 meeting. Trimming the city’s jail budget by $200,000 to free up money was a 4-2 vote. The council voted 6-0 for adding $300,000 to the library system and providing $600,000 for the senior center. Councilman Jeff Moore didn’t attend the Nov. 25 meeting because of other commitments.
On Dec. 2, a few council members said it’s not perfect but voted 7-0 to approve the adjusted budget as final.
Mayor Cassie Franklin, if she had a vote, probably wouldn’t have gone for every single Nov. 25 adjustment, but only because of the city’s bigger financial picture.
In a statement to council, Franklin said last week she believes these late-stage budget changes could have waited until spring when the city has better answers on the economy and a clearer outlook on its plans to pair up with private market partners for park services.
“I want to be clear that cutting services and events is the last thing I want to do,” Franklin told the council. “I, too, believe that they bring a lot of wonderful things to our community that we all enjoy. But I also believe that it is our responsibility as elected leaders to make the hard decisions that will move the city towards fiscal sustainability.”
Her comments came just as a financial futures report showed Everett will need to make extensive changes to fix its long-term structural deficit, where the cost of running the city exceeds tax revenues.
Franklin also pointed out that the city is actively lobbying for concessions from its employee unions to help balance the budget — a process that hasn’t finished yet as two unions were still in negotiation — and said, essentially, that it looks bad to spend money saved through concessions. This will weaken the city’s ability to negotiate concessions, the mayor said last week.
The funding plan for the senior center cobbles together money from two sources to give it a robust $600,000 budget. Council did so by re-assigning $300,000 from the city budget and then taking another $300,000 from the city’s Senior Center Reserve fund.
Nobody is saying the center could reopen because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The mayor has said, though, that putting funding to the center is basically pre-emptive.
The city is trying to have nonprofit organizations run programs at city facilities under the idea of private-public partnerships, which wouldn’t cost the city anything.
For the senior center, it’s not clear whether anyone applied to use the building for services — the city’s rulebook says the partnership applications received are sealed until a contract is signed.
The partnerships could also take up programs that were axed such as the city’s summertime petting zoo, summer concerts, and public pianos and typewriter events. The Forest Park Swim Center will remain closed.
The city attracted 12 organizations interested in partnering up for one of the city’s many parks properties, but because things are sealed, the city is keeping silent on the details of each proposal until each has a formal contract. The first few contracts could trickle out in coming weeks.
Some council members, such as Moore, spoke apprehensively about spending money for events when the city cut back more than 50 employee positions this year to help cover the 2020 budget. Councilwoman Liz Vogeli asked openly whether the budget amendments could be reversed, and had voted against the Nov. 25 amendments for funding the fireworks show and against trimming the jail services budget.
Franklin said the administration’s budget would have helped reduce the deficit by an average of $6.8 million per year over the next 5 years.
“The deficit in 2022 is projected at just over $14 million, and grows to over $30 million by 2027,” says a financial futures report recently completed by a fiscal advisory workgroup.
Adding programs back generally comes with the cost of adding to the deficit.
In the report, a few solutions recommended by 2023 are to create a parks district tax, transfer the city fire department into a regional fire authority and to ask voters for a property tax levy lid lift. A consultant is studying the parks district tax for Everett’s larger “PROS” parks planning update.
Note: The wrong staff byline was tagged for this story during December. It has since been updated.
