Clyde Hill News: Mayor agrees to “focus on fixing this budget”
Also: Budget spending cut review scheduled for Nov 1; Muromoto Park on the map
The city council unanimously agreed to pursue spending cuts at its public meeting on Friday afternoon rather than accept the preliminary budget presented earlier this month. In response to community concerns, the council also unanimously agreed on a statement in support of “fully funding the 2025 police budget.” (link)
Mayor Steve Friedman commented “My takeaway is that we’re going to focus on fixing this budget” (link) at the end of Friday’s budget discussion.
The city council will hold another public meeting next week to consider specific options for spending cuts en route to a smaller 2025 budget deficit. Between now and next week’s meeting, the city’s finance director will work with individual council members to inform that discussion.
Residents have offered constructive suggestions and feedback on how to proceed (link) after clearly communicating their concern and displeasure with the record deficit in Mayor Friedman’s proposed 2025 budget.
Some more detail on the budget discussion below, but first — Muromoto Park is now on the map:
Earlier this year, the city decided to rename the park by 92nd Ave NE after Kimitomo Muromoto, a long-time Clyde Hill resident and decorated World War II veteran. You can read more about him here (link).
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.
Budget 2025 Update: the short version
Here’s the short version of where we are on the 2025 budget, from a resident’s point of view:
City of Clyde Hill expenditures have exceeded its revenues since 2020. (link)
This year, residents and the city council pushed back on the record deficit in Mayor Friedman’s proposed budget and the city’s “business as usual” approach to budget deficits at a public hearing on October 7. (link)
Informed by resident feedback, the city council took action at its October 25 special meeting on the budget, unanimously agreeing to pursue spending cuts.
The deadline for the council to enact a 2025 budget, according to comments from City Administrator Dean Rohla during the meeting, is the end of November. The council meeting for that vote is currently scheduled for November 12.
The main challenge in this timeframe is how to bring the city’s 2025 spending in line with its expected revenues. The council’s focus on spending cuts reflects how new revenue sources are unlikely to materialize in the next few weeks.
How much spending can be cut back and what impact those cuts will have on city services from the residents’ point of view are not clear at this time. The material from the city concerning the budget is optimized for tracking and reporting, not planning. At the October 7 public hearing, Mayor Friedman declined to offer residents or the council specific options to reduce spending.
“Big picture” view of the budget
Residents trying to make sense of the city budget situation might find this document (link) from the city’s budget presentation helpful.
The bottom line depends on whether the city will dip into its reserves (“rainy day fund”) for the first time. The proposed budget (that the city council voted to modify) currently includes $200K of reserve funds to cover operational costs and keep the city’s balance sheet positive.
Using those reserves, that budget plan would have ~$316K of planned expenses in excess of revenues (item “5”, below).
Without the “transfer in” of $200K of reserves (item “3,” below), the planned expenses in excess of revenues would appear to be ~$516K.
Options in the short term, and after
In the short term, the city faces a November deadline to enact its 2025 budget.
The immediate work involves finding what spending cuts make sense given the available time, information, and community appetite for spending reserves in the absence of a long-term plan.
Resident engagement has increased since the October 7 public hearing on the budget. If you’d like to talk with other residents on this topic, please email and I’ll connect you with other residents who have reached out to me already. (I wish there were a better method in place to offer you, for example what neighboring Medina has done with https://engagemedina.com.)
There are many interesting options to consider after the immediate deadline:
Zoning and business revenue
At Friday’s meeting, Cm Ryan Olson brought up zoning changes that would permit more businesses to operate in Clyde Hill and provide more tax revenue to the city. This is an interesting idea I had not heard before.
Shared services
Sharing services with neighboring cities and towns to defray costs has been a popular topic that needs more investigation and follow-up.
Yarrow Point’s lean model
Yarrow Point runs with proportionally fewer full-time employees and more services performed by contractors. For example, rather than a full-time city administrator, Yarrow Point’s mayor has a more active operational role.
Communication helps
Residents have been clear about the city’s communication problem. A resident noted poor communication to the community about the city’s budget issues in an email that was part of the October 25 meeting:
If you go to the Clyde Hill website and click on City News on the home page it takes you to a page where there are 3 postings over the last 3 months and nothing related to the budget issue(s)…. From my perspective it is a sad commentary that I get the vast majority of news about what is happening in Clyde Hill from the Medina updates that I get texted and emailed to me on a regular basis. (Link)
There appears to be council consensus about a city communication problem, based on comments from council members in public meetings in September and October.
In the meantime, you can reach your elected officials 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>
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Dean Hachamovitch