EVERETT — For a few years now, City Hall has been talking about asking voters to annex the city library system into Sno-Isle Libraries, to ask voters to spin off the Everett Fire Department to be part of a regional fire authority and to ask voters to increase property taxes above the state’s 1% annual limit.
This year, it’s more serious as a date is in mind.
City leaders are targeting this November’s ballot to place a measure or two before voters to enact the changes.
From now to the March 20 council meeting, city leaders will be intensely studying the three ideas, Mayor Cassie Franklin said last week. No decisions, though, are expected until August at the latest.
Everett has had a structural deficit, where the expense of running the city outpaces its tax revenues, for more than 10 years. City leaders say it’s running out of options. For 2025, the gap stood at $12.9 million as of January.
The city’s library board said in a letter to council that its highest interest is growing and preserving library services in Everett. To this end, it’s open to considering annexing into Sno-Isle Libraries, but wants to be part of the conversation as equal partners, it wrote.
“We encourage City Council to explore all our
options to best serve the people of Everett,” the board wrote. It wants the research to be mindful of protecting Everett library workers’ jobs, assessing the impact annexation would have on Everett service levels, assurance Everett would have representatives on Sno-Isle’s board and to carefully look at Sno-Isle’s financial state.
Everett has trimmed its operations budget as far as it can go, and any further risks reaching beyond the ability for some services to function, city leaders said last week.
“The belts are so tight, it’s amazing we can still deliver services,” Franklin said.
Expenses also have increased since 2014. Jail expenses, for example, have nearly doubled, an increase of $2.1 million. Jail costs rose in part not because of more arrests but because the city is being charged for a higher level of care inmates are given, Franklin said.
The city has approximately 26 more employees than it did 10 years ago. Some additions have been in public safety, economic development and planning. One dozen or so city employees are working on homelessness that weren’t there 10 years ago.
On paper, offloading the city library system saves $6.4 million in the budget.
A property tax lid lift of 1% extra could add $8 million to the budget, from prior figures.
Moving Everett Fire into a regional fire system would save money by moving the cost of operating the fire department out of the city budget. Right now, residents pay two city levies that help fund the fire department.
If Sno-Isle Libraries annexed Everett’s libraries, residents would be charged Sno-Isle Library taxes on top of their city property taxes instead of having the library funded through city property taxes. Sno-Isle’s 2024 tax rate is 32 cents per $1,000 assessed value, or about $160 for a $500,000 home.
Last week there was a council vote to check whether city staff should spend time researching all three ideas. The City Council broadly said yes.
Council President Don Schwab said last week there’s a message to give.
“We’ve done a lot of work to maintain our expenses in the city,” he said. “I’m confident we ca go to residents to say we’ve done our part.”
Everett Transit, separately, is talking of merging with Community Transit. Everett Transit functions independently from the city budget.
