Clyde Hill News: Mayor: “I’m not being listened to;” work to reduce 2025 budget deficit continues with staff
City Hall to unionize? Tuesday night meeting includes public hearing re property tax, fee increases
Mayor Steve Friedman surprised council members and the public at Thursday afternoon’s special meeting when he explained that he is sitting out the 2025 budget deficit reduction discussions:
“At this point, I’m not helping this process at all. I’m not being listened to…. They [city staff] can handle that. I get a report. We’ll work through the process.” (link)
At the meeting on Thursday, staff and council reported another ~$70K of progress reducing the 2025 deficit. Based on that result, the council unanimously agreed to take more time to continue the effort:
With respect to the urgency of addressing the city’s deficit spending, City Administrator Dean Rohla noted that
“We have substantial reserves that we can live on for a significant number of years… while we’re easing our way into whatever a final determination1 is for revenue.” (link)
Also, City Hall employees have taken the first steps to forming a union, according to a public comment at the start of Thursday’s meeting. The comment claimed that an organization “filed a petition for representation of the bargaining unit here at Clyde Hill for the city employees.”
More detail and context on what residents can expect about the budget at Tuesday night’s meeting as well as how they can make their voice matter, below.
But first — evidence of budget pressure leading to more nimble local government: City Hall emailed residents that the 2025 budget plan and deficit will be a topic at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.
It’s great to see the administration taking resident feedback about communication to heart and acting on it. Another $12K of deficit reduction appears possible as the email was delivered using current city technology, so the 2025 budget line item for spending on “Improved technology solution for Community Engagement” might not be necessary.
Disclaimer: while I am a council member on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the city. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about city business I will respond from my city email account.
“Your voice matters” — public hearing on the budget Tuesday night
Here’s “the short version” of where things are. I appreciate all the reader feedback about focusing on the budget while residents still have an opportunity to affect the outcome.
2025 deficit is reduced, and still a record
The latest proposal for the 2025 budget has a significantly lower deficit (~$209K) than the Mayor’s initial proposal (~$316K), with the added benefit of not spending an additional ~$200K from city reserves.
It’s important to celebrate this progress. At the same time, the deficit is still a record deficit for Clyde Hill:
This progress reflects work by a “gang of four” — Cm Lisa Wissner-Slivka, Cm Steve Sinwell, City Administrator Dean Rohla, and City Finance Director Lisa King — in response to strong resident feedback and council consensus to take action now rather than “kick the can down the road.”
Public hearing on budget, deficit, and taxes
Tuesday night’s council meeting agenda will include a public hearing on 2025 property tax increases as well as the budget.
It’s not clear at this time if the council will vote on the revised budget Tuesday night, propose an alternative, or defer action to continue with deficit reduction efforts. The deadline for the council to enact a budget is the end of December.
Resident feedback about the proposed budget and revisions at the October 7 public hearing and at subsequent public meetings on October 25, November 1, and November 7 has been consistent:
Bring the city’s spending in line with its expected revenues.
Move the city past “business as usual” deficit spending.
Find “a different way” to do business because the deficit is “structural.”
Make the spending trade-offs clear.
“As lean as we can be,” or “as lean as we know how to be?”
During Thursday’s discussion, City Administrator Dean Rohla declared “We are as lean as we can be” in reference to the effort to find more savings in the city administration’s budget.
Operating models, and staff increases over time
One resident noted that a “big question that has not been asked or answered is how did we get away with so many fewer staff in the past to perform what I am assuming is the same mission.” According to this public comment (link), city staff increased over 35% while the city’s population remained flat.
That is the gist of the city’s “structural” budget problem: most of the city’s spending is on full-time employees, and the cost of full-time employees increases faster than the city’s revenues are increasing.
Thursday’s discussion touched on finding “a different operating model,” or other ways of getting the work of the city done. Cm Wissner-Slivka noted a lack of receptiveness from staff to ideas and suggestions.
Imperfect information, urgency, and living off reserves
Residents and the council will need to decide on the budget with imperfect information and many unanswered questions:
Residents and council have asked for but not seen a “financial runway” estimate, or statement of when the city runs out of money on its current budget trajectory.
Repeated questions from residents for specific information about how city services might change with decreased spending have not been answered.
There are no details on how big a tax increase would be necessary to balance the budget, nor how long residents could expect that increase to keep the budget balanced.
The city administrator also noted that Clyde Hill has
“substantial reserves that we can live on for a significant number of years… while we’re easing our way into whatever a final determination is for revenue.” (link)
That certainly is one point of view on the urgency of the problem the city faces and the best use of the city’s reserve (“rainy day”) funds.
“Mayor, please include yourself”
During Thursday’s meeting, Cm Ryan Olson noted that the budget deficit working sessions did not include Mayor Friedman. After the Mayor clarified that no one was excluding him, Cm Olson asked the Mayor, repeatedly, to engage.
Enough residents asked me about this part of the meeting that I am including their full exchange:
Cm Olson thanked the Mayor “for saying what you just did because I hadn’t heard that before.” Later in the discussion, Cm Sinwell offered that “not being involved in this process — that’s not leadership. I don’t know what to do with that.” (link)
Your voice matters
So far, public comment from residents has been in favor of bringing spending in line with expected revenues rather than expending the city’s “rainy day” funds.
At Thursday’s meeting, the Mayor appeared to attempt to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt about budget cuts, offering that “There’s lots of people who want to cut costs and balance the budget. I think there’s lots of people who don’t want to risk what we have here,” speculating on the consequences of unspecified cuts to unnamed services. He continued that “we’re not hearing from them at this point, but they are there.” (link)
Residents can send public feedback to their elected officials ahead of Tuesday’s meeting via email at these addresses:
"Mayor Friedman" <Mayor@clydehill.org>; "Councilmember Wissner-Slivka" <council1@clydehill.org>; "Councilmember Sinwell" <council2@clydehill.org>; "Councilmember Muromoto" <council3@clydehill.org>; "Councilmember Olson" <council4@clydehill.org>; "Councilmember Hachamovitch" <council5@clydehill.org>
Tuesday night’s meeting starts at 6pm at City Hall. You can find information for how to attend virtually here:
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Dean Hachamovitch
“Final determination” for revenue here appears to refer to a tax increase of some kind increase revenues to pay for spending.