Clyde Hill News: City finance and budget questions ahead in next week’s meeting
Also: voter pamphlet information preview for November
First, a Mt. Rainier view from Clyde Hill that I enjoyed while out for a walk this week:
And a reminder: Election Day is August 2… there’s a ballot drop in front of the library in Bellevue as well as many other locations. It’s not too late to register to vote; you can get more information on that here: link.
One more item before our disclaimer: if you find this newsletter useful or interesting, please forward it to your Clyde Hill neighbors and friends. Thank you!
Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember 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. The 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.
Looking at next week’s Council meeting (link), here are some topics of interest from a resident’s point of view.
Cost to Change the Form of Government
In November, when Clyde Hill voters choose whether or not to adopt the Council-Manager form of government and abandon the current Mayor-Council form, one question they might have is “What’s the cost?”
Councilmembers asked the Administration for a “reasonable, factual, specific estimate of the direct costs should there be a conversion to the new form of government.” (link)
The meeting packet includes a revised memo from the Mayor. Without offering any financial detail, the memo insists that the cost of the change will be significant. I admit I’m confused.
The document appears to ignore the specific feedback councilmembers offered to the Mayor’s previous estimate. For example, the Mayor’s memo continues to refer to costs to “Develop communication and reporting methods to keep the Council and public informed.” Councilmembers responded to this claim in the document’s previous version:
Either they [communication and reporting methods] exist and will be used or they don’t exist and would need to be created whether the conversion [of form of government] happens or not.
For context: the request to the Administration from the Council for a statement on costs was an attempt to address misinformation. Councilmember Steve Friedman politely noted (last month) that there are comments circulating in the community about the possible change in form of government that appear “to include unvalidated conclusions, seemingly nonfactual.” (link)
We can hope that some clarity emerges from the discussion Tuesday night.
Budget Amendment
The Administration offered details (link) about its proposed budget increases in this meeting’s packet.
Parts are clear and make sense. For example, the City will take on stormwater repairs at 17th St that were not in the budget approved last year. Also, the City had to hire a new City Attorney, incurring costs during the search that were not budgeted for, along with expensive interim legal coverage. The new City Attorney’s rates are higher than the former attorney’s, contributing to the budget crunch.
Other parts are less clear and make less sense. For example, there’s a salary adjustment for public works employees. There’s no mention in the packet right now about police. It’s not clear if the City considered a change for police officers, or why the City would consider a change for just some city employees.
The Administration also seeks to hire an “Executive Administrative Assistant” for three months. This item — tucked away on p15 as “3mnths EAA” — is also a bit puzzling.
It’s not clear how just adding more “worker bees” (to use the Mayor’s term) — or just one — will have an impact given what appear to be larger, structural issues. For example, at the previous Council meeting, Councilmembers expressed surprise that Medina appears to be faster and more effective at responding to Public Records Requests. During the discussion, the Administration adjusted its claim about how much of one administrator’s time is spent on that particular workload, from 90% down to 50%.
Discussion re: 2023 Budget process
The Administration set out its “2023 Budget Process and Priorities” (link) for discussion on Tuesday.
This item appears to be a response to Council feedback back in April (link) that noted a few issues. For example, for the 2022 budget, there was no public or Council discussion or consensus about the City’s goals and plan for work. Also:
The City’s planned expenditures exceeded the City’s planned revenue for its 2022, 2021, and 2020 operating budgets (General Fund). The City’s planned budget was balanced using the General Fund surplus from the previous year.
We’ll find out more Tuesday about what the Administration plans.
Ballot Measure Info
We are a ways off from seeing a Voter’s Pamphlet with information about the ballot measure. I’ve written before that
To be clear, there are valid arguments for and against keeping the current form of government. Very few have been aired to date. (link)
So, I went looking.
I found two recent examples in Washington of similar ballot measures to what we’ll see here in Clyde Hill in November: the City of Washougal, in 2018, and the City of Woodland, in 2021.
A couple of observations from looking at the Voter’s Pamphlet information for these measures:
The Mayor of the Woodland supported the effort to change the form of government from Mayor-Council to Council-Manager. In fact, he was the chair of the effort and prepared the argument for the Voter’s Pamphlet.
The statements about the measure in both cities emphasized the value of
an experienced professional running the administration, and
distributing oversight to the Council rather than concentrating it in one person (the elected Mayor).
Neither of the measures for those cities had an “Argument Against” or rebuttals.
You can read them yourself — here (link) on p82 and here (link) on p78. Let me know what you think!
I also found recent examples in Washington of similar ballot measures going in the other direction, from Council-Manager to Mayor-Council. I’m still digging in to those, and will write more about them later.
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Dean Hachamovitch