City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call to order the Shoreline City Council regular meeting for Monday, September 14, 2026. Will you please join council for the flag salute? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mayor Robertson? Here. Deputy Mayor Pobey? Here. Council Member Snyder? Here. Council Member Roberts?

Here.

Council Member Adomasu? Present. Council Member Mork? Present. Council Member Scully?

Present.

Okay, next, I would like to invite King County Library System Executive Director Heidi Daniel and Regional Manager Alice Darnton to the podium for the reading of the Welcoming Week Proclamation. This year they are accepting the proclamation in honor of their hard work and commitment to this occasion over the last three years. Whereas Welcoming Week is a national initiative to promote positive and meaningful connections between recent immigrants, refugees, and longtime residents to build stronger communities, and whereas we recognize the Duwamish and all Puget Salish indigenous nations as the first people who continue to be stewards of and thrive on these lands we call home. And whereas the Shoreline population is home to people of increasingly diverse backgrounds, where 22% of residents were born outside the United States, 48% of adult residents, and 53% of Shoreline students identify as people of color, while 11% of students in Shoreline School District are English language learners. And whereas new immigrants are vital to Shoreline in establishing businesses, serving in civic roles, and working in critical industries, and whereas the city of Shoreline recognizes we must work to undo historical and systemic racism, xenophobia, and other oppressions that contribute to inequity, And whereas the city council adopted resolution numbers 401, 467, and more recently number 560, declaring the city's commitment to immigration safety by supporting all state and county efforts to advocate constitutional protections and humane treatment for all persons in opposition of the tactics determined by ICE. Now, therefore, I, Betsy Robertson, Mayor of the City of Shoreline, on behalf of the Shoreline City Council, do hereby proclaim September 10th through 19th as Welcoming Week in the City of Shoreline and encourage everyone to affirm our inclusive city to achieve collective prosperity. We thank our Shoreline Library friends who have consistently organized Welcoming Week events for several years now.

Oh, I just want to say something.

Thank you, Shoreline City Council. King County Library System and the Shoreline Library are honored to celebrate Welcoming Week with you. I'm Alice Darnton, Regional Manager for the Alder Region. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm joined by Heidi Daniel, KCLS Executive Director, to share a little information about how King County Libraries join you in exemplifying the spirit of Welcoming Week throughout the year. KCLS libraries host weekly welcoming centers located in Auburn, Bellevue, Federal Way 320th, Redmond, and Tukwila libraries, as well as Kent Library, which is currently closed for renovation. The welcoming centers offer drop-in help for immigrants, refugees, and new arrivals. Also welcoming ambassadors are multilingual staff who connect people to housing, food, jobs, health, education, and legal resources. In your local library, we offer collections for all ages as well as multilingual programs. An example of a program held at Shoreline Library for Welcoming Week just yesterday was a musical trip around the world. 62 people attended this interactive all-ages program featuring songs and instruments from Latin America and Japan. Another Welcoming Week program for adults is coming up tomorrow. Registration is currently full for a Japanese tea ceremony program featuring a traditional ceremony demonstration, followed by a question and answer period and samples of matcha tea and sweets. I wish I were going. That sounds delightful. Finally, we wanted to highlight our Welcoming Week reads list, which staff created to include 27 books for every age in every format about the experiences of immigrants and refugees. All of these programs, materials, and services we shared with you tonight show that the library is for everyone. And we, as well as the city of Shoreline, value being inclusive and welcoming of all cultures, embracing and drawing strength from differences, removing barriers to opportunity, and fostering connection, community, and belonging. We look forward to welcoming you to your library soon. Thank you very much.

Okay, we're not done. Now I would like to ask EOC Radio Lead Lee Hopf and Comm Van Lead Chris Goodman from Shoreline Auxiliary Communications Services to join me while I read the Safe Shoreline Month and National Preparedness Month proclamation. Whereas the safety, security, and resilience of Shoreline depends on a whole community approach that brings together residents, businesses, first responders, city, staff, volunteers, community organizations, and regional partners to prepare for and respond to emergencies. And whereas whole community preparedness recognizes that everyone has a role in emergency preparedness and that strong partnerships help ensure the needs of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, and circumstances are considered before, during, and after disasters, and whereas the City Council has established a goal to promote and enhance community safety and broader community connection, and whereas City of Shoreline may be impacted by various natural and human-caused regional hazards requiring extended periods of response and recovery, and whereas the Shoreline Office of Emergency Management focuses on community preparedness by working with residents to be ready for disasters through various community engagements and preparedness events, and whereas the month of September has been declared National Preparedness Month to encourage individuals, families, workplaces, and organizations to understand risks and hazards, make emergency plans, build and maintain emergency supplies, and stay informed. Now, therefore, I, Betsy Robertson, Mayor of the City of Shoreline, on behalf of the Shoreline City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2026 as Safe Shoreline Month and National Preparedness Month in the City of Shoreline, and we urge all community members to implement emergency preparedness and safety measures at home, at work, and in your community spaces. I think all of the yellow vests should come up to take a picture for this as well.

Yeah, let's move over here. Hello, thank you. I don't have any slides. We're communications, so we'll keep it brief. Thank you, mayor and city council and city staff for this opportunity and what we feel at ACS is a renewed sense of importance for emergency management and preparedness. And we're looking forward to receiving help from the city in that department that will then allow us to better help our neighbors, especially those that may not be able to help themselves. So it kind of works its way down the ladder. These recent changes are very encouraging for us, and we continue as we have for, lo, the many 20 years or so now to advocate for preparedness and to help our neighbors. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, lastly, on behalf of the Shoreline City Council, I hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2026, as a time to celebrate Dies Patrius in the City of Shoreline for Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month and encourage all community members to find ways to honor Latin heritage throughout the years. Thank you. And now we're moving on to the rest of our business meetings, starting with approval of tonight's agenda. Are there any objections or comments? Seeing none, the agenda is adopted by unanimous consent, which brings us to the report of the city manager, Mr. Ellington.

Good evening, council, and welcome back. I have a few updates to share this evening, including upcoming community events and opportunities to get involved. First, we have several informational sessions on Shoreline Proposition 1, with the next one being tomorrow, September 15th, at 7 p.m. As a reminder, Proposition 1 will appear on the November 3rd general election ballot and ask Shoreline voters whether to create a Shoreline Metropolitan Park District. If approved, the district would fund the construction and operation of a new pool facility. City staff will provide factual information about this proposition and answer questions during each session. Several dates and times are available between now and October 8th. You can find the full schedule and additional information at shorelinewa.gov forward slash shoreline prop one. As the mayor mentioned, September 15 marks the beginning of Latinx Heritage Month, which is recognized through October 15th. This month is an opportunity to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of Latin American communities, while also learning more about the histories and experiences that have helped shape these communities. Here in Shoreline, community members can celebrate by supporting Latin-owned businesses, learning about Latin American cultures and traditions, and connecting with local organizations that serve immigrant and refugee communities. We encourage everyone to take some time over the next month to learn, celebrate, and connect. Shoreline has also joined Nourishing Networks, a community-based effort focused on building connections and strengthening the network of support. The first shoreline gathering is this Wednesday, September 16th, from 9 to 10 a.m. I'm sorry, 1030 a.m. in conference room 303 here at City Hall. These monthly gatherings are open to everyone, including community organizations, housing providers, neighborhood groups, small businesses, and individual community members. The goal is simple, bring people together to share what they're working on, what they can offer, what they need, and where there may be opportunities to support one another. Going forward, the group will meet on the third Wednesday of each month we have one shoreline walk event happening this week tomorrow september 15th our walk leader will host the happy valley walk from 10 a.m to noon meeting at calvin presbyterian church shoreline walks is a great way to get outside meet your neighbors and explore different neighborhoods and destinations throughout the city learn more about the program and upcoming walks at shorelinewa.gov forward slash shoreline walks and finally just a couple of public reminders the planning commission will meet this thursday september 17th at 7 pm in the council chambers the next council meeting is next monday september 21st at 7 pm here in the chambers and the parks recreation and cultural services tree board will meet thursday september 24th at 7 pm in conference room 303 here at city hall meeting details agendas and additional information can be found at shorelinewa.gov forward slash calendar and that concludes the city manager's report thank you mr ellington moving on to agenda item number five are there any council reports this evening council member adamasu

Thank you, Mayor. I attended today a tour with one of the committees I'm on, King Conservation District. So it was two horse neck farms down in Kent. King County bought this piece of land and provides leases to owners that do sustainable and regenerative agriculture. So I would say at this piece of land, there was maybe 50 to 60 farmers that lease land from King County. They provide the food for the farmers markets and other places. Regenerative farming is one of the big solutions for climate change. Thank you.

That's my remark.

Thank you. To keep things short, I'll just basically make a list. At the Regional Water Quality Association meeting, we talked about the 30-year plan. I attended the Association of Washington Businesses, excuse me, Washington Cities, excuse me, you can tell. city's legislative priorities as well as Sound Cities Association legislative priorities. And there the big focus is budget sustainability and trying to get the state to fully fund the fiscal health account as well as make other changes such as not reading the public works fund. And then I also attended the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, where various legislative priorities were brought up, as well as discussion on rates and K4C, which is climate, our climate concern King County cities. So thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Pobey.

Thank you, Mayor. At our seashore transportation forum meeting, this was a joint one. That was the whole King County. We had the privilege of getting a recap of how the FIFA Men's World Cup went in regards to transportation. So we heard from FIFA LOC, from King County Metro Sound Transit, Washington, Seattle Department of Transportation, and part of Seattle. One thing that was... Remarkable is how the transit system was robust, which makes Seattle one of the, if not the best place to have hosted the World Cup. And as we're talking, mentioning the two light rails in the city of Sherman, I felt very proud as co-chair of the transportation forum. So I think that this is where we pride ourselves of the hard work that has been done throughout the region. All right, thank you. Council Member Scully.

Thank you. We've had a couple of public meetings about ICE activity. And one of the things I think the council wanted to establish was reporting pathways when people see what they think is misconduct. So I asked the city manager who asked the chief, has that happened? And what I got back is, as of September 10th, we've had one case report taken related to ICE and one 911 call. Both were determined to be non-criminal in nature by the police. So that's not enough data for us to know whether what we had hoped would be happening will be happening. So I encourage folks, if you see what you think is unlawful behavior, to report it. Not I saw an ICE officer or I saw an ICE officer making an arrest, but I've heard just in my personal life stories of reckless driving and concerns with some of the activities that are going on on arrests. State law applies. Immunity is qualified. But we can't do anything if we don't know about it. Thank you.

Thank you. I will wrap us up by saying that it was an eventful summer in lots of ways. But one of the highlights for me was getting to travel with a group of city staff, representatives from the city of Mountlake Terrace, Port of Seattle, community members, our Chamber of Commerce. And we did some traveling to study urban planning. It was made possible by a grant from the Scan Design Foundation. a really insightful trip that we look forward to sharing more with you about. Learning about not just urban planning, land use, projects that take into account climate adaptation, connecting our city in new ways, placemaking, and thinking about every project that we take on as a city as a multi-layer opportunity to create gathering spaces and connectivity throughout community. So it's something that I'm really excited about. Also in attendance were the consultants who are helping us with our town center planning. And so that learning lend itself to the pop-up that took place at town center this Saturday. A number of tents were available, activities. And it was a very busy day of traffic on the Interurban Trail. We got to really be out there for many hours and see just how well used it is and by whom. And we also got to ask people about their future vision for this space. and what it could be and how it could benefit us as a whole. So that was just on Saturday. I haven't seen the results yet, but it was a great opportunity to be with people and be in our community town center and imagine the great things that are ahead for it. So more to come. And if there's no other council reports, I will transition to public comment. This is the opportunity for members of the public to address city council on agenda items or other matters pertaining to city business for three minutes or less, depending on the number of people wishing to speak. This total public comment period will be no more than 30 minutes. If more than 10 people are signed up to speak, each speaker will be allocated two minutes. And if there are any speakers signed up remotely, they'll be called on after those who are in person. Ms. Hardy, how many individuals have signed up to speak tonight? Five. Okay, everyone will have the full three minutes. And when it is your turn, please state your name, city of residence, and any organization you represent, and be advised that your testimony is being recorded. Ms. Hardy, could you please call the first speaker to the podium?

Our first speaker is Quang Vo, then Amanda Lopez-Casanoor. than Emily Jones.

Good evening, Mayor and members of city councils. My name is Quang Bo, and I am the residence and property owner in the North City here. I'm here tonight because of the Energize Solar Alliance heat pump program is failing our local taxpayer due to an anti-competitive roster restrictions. City management claims their closed list of 15 approved contractors provide enough options and competition. But when I collected competing bids for an exact apple-to-apple Mississippi four-zone system, the reality told a very different, a completely different story. A top-tier independent contractor, not on the list, quoted me $13,345 total out-of-pocket for a superior Mitsubishi system. Meanwhile, the city approved roster vendors quoted vastly higher rate. And I'm just gonna give you some of the city vetted list here. Greenwood coded 14,196 for an inferior Daikin system, and product air pre-rebate baseline exceeded 17,088, meaning that even after applying the CD, 2,500 standard rebate product air net price was still higher than the open market. Other approved options like Ecoelectric for Daikin system came in as high as $22,201. In short, the approved vendors are more expensive and the public subsidy is simply padding contractor margins rather than helping consumers. When I brought this exact number to the city management, I was flatly told the rules couldn't be changed. So on behalf of the residents of my community, HOAs, and residents in North City, taxpayer funds should lower the barriers for green energy, not subsidizing inflated pricings for a protective vendor list. I urge this council and your mayors to direct staff to open the rebate to any licensed diamonds certified contractors, five-star ratings, meeting standards, state qualifications. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, council members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Amanda Lopez-Castanon, and I'm the director of food programs at Hope Link. As many of you know, Hope Link operates a public-serving, no-cost food market here in the city of Shoreline. Hope Link has a long history of serving this community. and our shoreline market continues to be an important resource for residents experiencing food insecurity. The city's generous support has helped make this work possible, and I'm here today to ask that you continue this investment. We all know the cost of living is rising, but for families we serve, these increases are not simply numbers. They affect everyday decisions. Over the past year, King County energy prices have risen 15.9%, while gasoline prices have increased 17%. For a household already living on a very limited or fixed income, these increases create impossible choices. Do I keep the lights on? Do I put gas in the car to get to my child's doctor's appointment? Or do I buy groceries? For some households, changes in federal policy and benefits have made these challenges even greater. Hopelink's shoreline market helps relieve at least one of these pressures by providing access to one of our most basic human needs, which is food. and the need is significant. So far, in this third quarter of 2026 alone, our shoreline market has served 2,621 households. 186 of those households are new and 2,435 returning households. Those households represent more than 6,000 individuals served on a monthly basis. in this community, including 376 people accessing our services for the first time. These numbers demonstrate why keeping our shelves stocked with healthy, nutritious food is so important. They also reinforce the importance of offering culturally relevant foods that reflect the diverse communities that call Shoreline home. Our market uses a self-choice shopping model rather than receiving a pre-packed box. Clients select the foods that best meet their household's dietary, cultural, and personal needs. This model helps reduce food waste, provides greater choice, and most importantly allows people to access food with dignity. We are also requesting additional support for Hopelink's role in the annual Shoreline Holiday Basket event this December. Hopelink has a long-standing partnership with the Shoreline PTA Council and the Dale Turner YMCA to provide food and resource connections at this family-focused community event. Last year, we distributed food through the Holiday Basket event to 580 families, representing 2,600 families family members which included 1300 children city funding directly supports our ability to respond to this growing need it helps us put nutritious food on our shelves provide culturally relevant choices connect families to additional resources and ensure that shoreline residents experiencing hardships have somewhere to turn your continued investment is needed thank you thank you

Good evening. Thank you for having us here this evening, council members and mayor. My name is Emily Jones. I live in Seattle, but I work here in Shoreline. And I'm not going to, at the Senior Center, sorry. I still get so nervous. Anyway, I'm just here to say thank you. I know that we are in consideration for your budget that you'll be approving for the next two years. And I just wanted to let you know that with the incoming silver wave, as by 2030, all baby boomers will be 65 and older. We need to start preparing now for the next wave of older adults in our community. And thanks to your ongoing support, I just wanted to let you know that as of August 31st this year, we have served 5,463 meals that are hot and nutritious and in a welcoming, sociable environment. We have had over 25,000 hours of participation at the center. And we've had, oh my gosh, there was something else I was going to say. I'm here to say thank you. And to get a new brain. Oh, was that telling me to stop? I'll stop. But we are appreciative for everything that you do for this center. And if you want to know the new name of the center, come to the ribbon cutting next week. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next is Jonelle Kimmerling, then Norbert Steele.

Janelle Kemmerling from Shoreline, representing Safe Shoreline Trees. You have received a letter containing a budget request from myself and Carla Carroll, who was a member of the Tree Code Update Citizens Advisory Group. Carla is unable to be here this evening. We feel the lack of a single management person who has oversight across all city departments that are involved with tree canopy preservation is critical, as climate change is affecting cities in ways never before imagined. Now we see in tonight's preliminary view of the biennial budget a request for a city urban forester. We support this budget item and would like to know if it will encompass the aspects we outlined in our budget request. Is it possible that this person can come on board in 2027 as this management is sorely needed? Many thanks to you as you begin this biennial budget process.

Thank you.

Norbert Steele of Shoreline Washington. We have a lot to talk about this evening, but I do need to just take a quick deviation from what I plan to talk about to quickly respond to Keith Scully's statement about making sure that people are reporting ICE activity, but also making sure that they're not just calling when ICE arrests someone, but explicitly when only they're committing a crime, which I guess means that it's now our job to go up to the ICE agents arresting someone and like take a look at the warrants ourselves because I guess that's what we need to do now because we can't call the police if we see them. We have to make sure it's a crime first. And even though we all know that no one's going to actually prosecute any of these crimes and hold anyone actually accountable because that's just the way we're, that's the world we live in now. That was just so fucking disingenuous. I just had to respond to that. Anyway, onto the budget. There's a lot of programs in the budget that do need the funding that is currently being afforded to them. Some people spoke about it just now, and they absolutely should be receiving the funding the city is giving to them. However, we're just continuing to increase property and sales taxes, which I understand is one of the limited ways we have available to increase the money we can spend on the budget, but it's I do this thing where I come here and I say, what's going to happen verbatim in the future? And then it happens. Like I came here and I said that after FIFA, ICE is going to be here. So we're going to see a massive ramp up in ICE activity. And no one believed me. So let me just cut to the end of what happens in a few years. As we all head toward a recession, we all know America is going for it. It's why all of the projections in this budget are worse than last year's. Things are going to get more expensive. Our social programs will continue to get more taxed. More people will be relying on the free food bank. And as everything continues to get more expensive, we ramp up sales taxes and property taxes while continuing to also pay for the increases that all our contractors have. So we're paying for it twice. Electricity gets 15% more expensive for everyone twice. everyone charges 15% more, so the residents of the city get hit with 15% twice. That's why the police budget's gotten a 15% raise every year, apparently. It's because, you know, that's just how it goes for everything that isn't social programs in the city. God, I do not have enough time. Yeah, the current revenue streams that are being offered by these sales and property taxes are a band-aid. They will not solve any actual problems. They only delay the inevitable. The city needs to actually start looking into proper revenue streams that aren't just, we're going to increase the sales tax by 0.05%, call it the protect the children tax or whatever, you know, cringe thing is being used to push through the vote. Let's see, seven seconds. All right, prediction. Next week, you're going to go over the survey results. They're not going to be good. They're going to be a lot worse than last year's.

Thank you. Is there anyone online or anyone else for public comment? Thank you. OK, moving on then. I would now like to ask for approval of the consent calendar.

I move for the approval of the consent calendar.

Second. Approval of the consent calendar is moved and seconded. Will the clerk please call the vote?

Deputy Mayor Povey.

Aye.

Council Member Otamasi. Aye. Council Member Mark. Aye. Council Member Scully.

Aye.

Mayor Robertson. Aye.

Consent calendar is approved. Next on the agenda is a public hearing and discussion on the 2027 Community Development Block Grant Funding and Contingency Plan and the 2027-2028 Human Services Funding Plan. The agenda for the public hearing will be, first, a staff presentation, second, public testimony, third, council discussion. And tonight we have Bethany Wolbert Dunn and Suni Tolton to present the staff report.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Again, yes, tonight we are here for basically two reasons. One is to present the 2027 Community Development Block Grant Funding and Contingency Plan and hold a public hearing related to that. And the second item, while related, is the 2027-2028 Human Services Funding Plan and And you'll hear the next three categories a few times tonight. This is the breakdown of how this funding plan is organized. We have the community fund, which is a competitive process that agencies apply to. We have a carve out for homelessness services. And we have a category of core funding, which is revenue restricted or line item budget items. So with that, I'll turn it over to Suni to talk about our CDBG annual process.

All right. Thank you. So every year, the CDBG funding must have a public hearing and council approval, and also when reprogramming funds. So there is an estimated $320,000 available for 2027. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, has specific requirements and distributes them to local governments where our funding comes through King County's Housing and Community Development Division. They serve as our intermediary with HUD. The parameters for our agreement with King County are set through our interlocal cooperation agreement and Shoreline City Council approves the local decisions on capital funding. The interlocal agreement with King County has these set percentages for funding, which includes Shoreline's contributions to two King County regional programs. The King County Major Home Repair Program, which assists low to moderate income homeowners and renters with disabilities. It is a matching fund loan program up to $34,000 per home, and there's no interest and no payments required until the home is sold. And there's very strict guidelines around how much assets and what's required of the homeowner. So again, it's matching. And that is one of the regional programs. The other one is the Regional Housing Stability Program, which provides rent and mortgage assistance to prevent homelessness. It also provides some financial support to those who've been unhoused who are moving into permanent housing. And then the King County planning administrative costs cover our county staff time in the planning and reporting to HUD, which is extensive. Also creation of the consolidated plan and administration of Shoreline's capital projects. 48% of our funding is allocated to local capital projects. And the recommendations for council approval include Sound Generation's minor home repair program for $130,000, which is the current contract amount for 2026. So we're keeping that recommendation the same for 2027. And I'll talk more about minor home repair on the next slide. And then the unallocated contingency fund is pot that we have for kind of future affordable housing projects or emergency human services capital projects when needed. There's been a lot of staff experience working with CDBG funds and we've learned over time that it's challenging so we try to save these relatively small amounts over several years so that we're able to invest in a larger project when those projects become apparent. So this year, we're starting fresh. So this amount is kind of all we have for the future. The previous projects have included the Lake City Partners for Ending Homelessness, the Oaks Emergency Sewer Repair, for example, and some other projects. For the Minor Home Repair Program, it's a long-standing and very well-used program. Minor Home Repair helps adults maintain independence and remain safely in their homes. Over 90% of those served are over age 60, and 84% report having a disability. All homeowners served last year have low or very low incomes. So very low is about 50% AMI, so under $57,550, and low income being under 80% AMI, which is around $81,000. In the process for serving our community members, a minor home repair technician will do an initial health and safety inspection of the home. Fall prevention is critically important for older adults, as falls are the most common injury. Common repairs include installing grab bars, railings, and ADA toilets, repairing leaky faucets, replacing smoke and carbon dioxide detectors, and also hot water heaters. Labor and materials for the repairs are provided at no cost to the homeowner. there is a maximum amount for the projects up to $4,999 per year. But it rarely goes to that high. It's often very simple repairs. As of June 2026, Minor Home Repair Program had met 50% of their contract goals for the number of home repairs and 60% of their contract goals for households served.

So that is a summary of our 2027 Community Development Block Grant Funding Plan. And now we'd like to move into information regarding our 2027-2028 Human Services Funding Plan. And really, before diving into the details, we'd like to briefly recap sort of what is our table setting for the plan, which is our 2024 Adopted Human Services Strategic Plan. And again, this plan establishes a framework for strengthening human services and addressing community needs, improving outcomes, and ensuring that resources that we have align to maximize funding that is available. So within that plan and within our program, the city really serves four roles. We're a partner. We provide community support. We are a planner. And then, of course, the largest thing is we are a funder. So in terms of partnering and strategic plan recommendations, we're to continue programs where we work with either the school district through our community resource team that SUNY co-leads with a member of the school district, the King County Community Court, North Urban Human Services Alliance, and so on. In terms of community support, the recommendations were to maintain or increase community support specialists, and then also to focus outreach to communities with greatest barriers accessing services, We really found and heard that system navigation is a real challenge for folks. This may be their first time needing rent assistance. It's just a real challenge to figure out where to call and to navigate the social services system. And then in terms of planning, the recommendation from the strategic plan was to connect human services to housing strategies. And so as we were here a month or so ago to talk about the affordable housing feasibility study that's currently at work right now, we are scheduled to come back for initial information on analysis that have taken place on October 12. And then in terms of being a funder, The plan prioritized services in three main categories, basic needs, behavioral health services, and housing and homelessness. And then also to increase funding with a focus on equity and access. And so in the 2526 plan, there was some additional funding allocated as part of the budget process.

So as we look into the 2027-2028 Human Services Funding Plan recommendations, I will go through the three categories. And just as a reminder, the Human Services funding amount is 1% of general fund revenue. The community fund is about 75%, which is, Bethany mentioned, is allocated through a competitive RFP process. That Shoreline is a partner with the Human Services Funding Collaborative, which is made up of 17 suburban cities in King County, who partner on this RFP process every two years. It's a single application, which helps reduce administrative burden for the nonprofits and also for city staff. The RFP process opened in March of this year, and we received 52 applications in this cycle with over 1.4 million in requests. This year, the city did a little bit of a more focused process where we only asked for applications related to basic needs and older adult services. My experience is two years is a very short amount of time to have to do a whole lot of application process. And so in 2028, we will RFP the other program areas of behavioral health and youth and family services. The attachment A lists the programs that are being recommended for funding. These include six agencies with 10 different programs. And unfortunately, we're not able to fully fund all the requests. On average, about 42% of the requests, the amount that they requested is what we're able to fund. All of our current providers are being recommended for funding. One program did end in May of 2025, so that's why it's not part of the funding moving forward. And we are recommending three new programs as they align with the Human Services Strategic Plan recommendations. One is the Chinese Information Service Center, which provides in-language support, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, and Ukrainian for folks who are trying to get access to health care and navigate benefits. And also... HIP Hunger Intervention Program and KidVantage, which provide food to youth and basic needs supplies for babies and kids. The next or the homelessness bucket of funding is 25% of our human services funds. And Shoreline has been part of an interlocal agreement with King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which had been administering these contracts. So as folks know, that's in transition. And moving forward, the contracts will be returning to Shoreline. And at this point, we will continue to fund the current agencies for 2027 and contract directly. And then our core programs include and restricted funding includes this new area of opioid settlement funds. That's about $65,000 and it's going to center for human services for prevention and substance use treatment. This has been funds that are coming to the city of Shoreline through the different settlements. There's quite a range of payout, so it's a little bit unpredictable with the time frame. Shoreline is set to receive about $252,000. but it's a range between 11 and 17 years of payment. So we don't know exactly when we're gonna get the full amount, but we did include those funds in this last RFP process. And the annual total is just over 1.1 million.

So while the total amount that we have for the human services funding plan each year is established, as SUNY indicated, by policy, the council has, on occasion, allocated additional funding to support specific projects. Those additional allocations provide an opportunity to temporarily expand a level of service in a particular area. And this slide just highlights the 25, 26 one-time Council Human Services budget amendments I think you heard about the Holiday Baskets program. That serves over 600 families each year in collaboration with the fire department, the school district, Hope Link, and the Y. And you can see that it was funded last year. And we currently do not have any funding allocated for that. In terms of rent and utility assistance, that 100,000 serves 36 households with 78 residents through Hope Link. The older adult counseling, which was provided through the senior center, serves 30 seniors with ongoing counseling, 23 group sessions, and four mental health workshops. And then the community support staff, which were established during COVID with ARPA funding. And then we transitioned this last budget cycle to limited term positions that will be ending at the end of this year. I went too far. So our recommendation, staff recommendation tonight is to conduct the required public hearing for CDBG funding and then discuss the staff recommendations for the 2027 CDBG funding plan and the 2027-28 human services funding plan and to provide feedback to us for action on September 28th. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Now it is time to open public testimony, which is limited to three minutes per person testifying. The city clerk will act as the timekeeper for each speaker. Ms. Hardy, is anyone pre-registered to speak for this public hearing?

No.

OK. Is there anyone in the audience or virtually who would like to testify during this public hearing? If so, please either make your way to the podium or raise your hand virtually, and the clerk will call on you. Raising your hand virtually means pressing star 9 on the telephone or the Raise the Hand button on Zoom. I'm just giving him another few seconds. Okay, seeing no one moving to the podium, the public comment period for this public hearing is now closed, and I will turn to council for some discussion. Deputy Mayor Pobey.

Thank you. First of all, a great report, and it's always exciting to see what Little Money is doing in our community, and the mayor and I did talk about how important it is to prioritize community building, and this is one of the many ways we do. And as my colleague, Councilmember Skelly, always says, we have millions of dollars for building capital projects. How about building community? Clarify for me, though, the Council Human Services budget amendments, I remember I think I did that, the community support staff, are you asking for approval for next on the 28th? Because that will have to come through the main Go ahead.

Correct. It is not. That position will end the December 31st, and it's not currently in the budget that Director Branstadter will be presenting next.

OK. So when you say the approval for the 28th does not include this?

Correct.

OK. Thank you.

Any other council questions, comments? Council Member Scully.

If you can take a look at page 11 No, sorry, page 10 of the slide. And I'm not tracking what those percentages on the pie chart are. Can you explain what those correlate to?

That's the percentages of the total funding that's going towards each area.

Not CDBG, but just of the whole?

Right. Yeah, not CDBG. Nothing on this page is community development block grant.

OK, awesome. And then my only other question is, I mean, I'm always concerned about overhead. And KCRHA was absorbing some of that. It's my understanding, and please confirm, that they're just not doing that anymore. And so we kind of have to take back over.

Correct. They were not charging us overhead in the first place. So they have basically said, we need to leave. They don't have interest in it, and that's fine. For four years, we didn't contract for it. We still had great relationships with the agencies. Honestly, the biggest question moving forward that we're committed to is the severe weather response. Because that was a contract that they held for us in combining five cities' money. It was in Shoreline. Prior to the last two seasons, we, the city and Noosa, on shoestring budget, ran that program with volunteers. And that just became untenable. We just could not continue to do that. And so we're actually meeting with the four other cities tomorrow to talk about this and other issues. But everyone... especially Shoreline, recognizes the importance of that. And so within that 191, there's a little over, I don't know, there's $25,000 a year to go towards severe weather, which is not really enough to do it on its own. But I think we can work with other cities to perhaps pull that. But that's to be determined. But there are people that are...

working on that. Thank you. And that's a real concern. We don't need to get too into the weeds in this particular hearing. But I remember the battle to get that off the ground. And I remember just that time going on and the weather getting colder and thinking, if someone freezes on the streets of Shoreline while we were trying to get our ducks in a row, that's a fail. And you were not involved in that. But I do hope that we prioritize that. And please don't be afraid to come to us if you need some help, because that's a top priority for me.

Yeah, and there is initial talks with KCRHA and City of Seattle and King County that KCRHA would still manage the tiered system. meaning when certain degrees are met, certain predictions of amount of snow. The benefit to that is that it's system-wide activation, and so we don't have to make our own communications. We just basically tell people, go to the KCRHA website, get on their email. They'll send the email out. It's posted there. It lists the shoreline site, et cetera. The other improvement was the transportation that was added. offered the last couple of years. And so we saw more days of the shelter in the winter being open and also higher usage of it. So again, totally committed to making something happen, hopefully with the partners that were doing it last time. But more to come on that.

Thank you. I'm going to follow up to the question because KCRHA came up. And so I missed this in the document, the fact that our ILA is ending at the end of this calendar year. And are we basically saying, is this breaking news that we're pulling our support out of the KCRHA?

It's a mutual breakup. KCRAJ came to us and said, to the five cities in the north end and said, we need to end the ILA because we will not be, we're not willing to manage these smaller contracts anymore. So we are respecting their breakup. And to be frank, we were willing, I think Shirlene was willing to kind of see how it went with the new KCRAJ moving forward. But it was still out there whether the four other cities in the north end that are partners in the ILA were going to continue. And then while we did provide the largest amount to the north end pool by far, again, I think other councils maybe didn't have the same commitment. So we just weren't sure how it was going to play out. But we were willing to see. And then it was sort of they broke up with us. told us they're no longer going to be doing it. So we will be doing a full reconciliation of payments and everything at the end of the year. And again, just a reminder that they did not charge us. There was no overhead involved in that. OK. Thank you for that.

Council Member Snyder.

Thank you. I had a couple questions, and one is kind of multi-based, I guess, and kind of piggybacking on Deputy Mayor Povey's question about the community support specialist. When I read through the very good report, I read a lot of support and testament to a lot of things that have one-time funding and are not going to be in the budget anymore. So I got the grocery assistance, the holiday baskets, the community support specialists that had calls for assistance two times what they were at this period in 2025. And they also worked alongside King County Community Resource Center. That's no longer being financed, the older adult mental health FTE no longer in the budget, the Hope Link rent and utilities not in the budget. What am I missing? That we had such a strong case for all of these programs, and now they're being tossed out.

I don't think they're being tossed out. I will say there is other rental assistance that is within the plan. So this was $100,000 additional. There are some utility funding that the council established in the mid-2000 that is in a line item in the core restricted. I think it's about $26,000 moving forward each year. There is 60, I should actually read this. There is $66,000 for financial assistance through Hope Link, again. And that could be utility. That could be rent. That could be medical bills. There's also some funding. through Shoreline Community Care, which for 30,000 moving forward, they do smaller amounts than Hope Link and kind of in a quicker process. So just kind of in terms of the funds that were highlighted as those were all brought to, you know, from the dais, from the council members directly. So I think council members can see things that are happening in the community and wanting, you know, choosing to respond to that.

I think these one-time ads were based on increasing the support that we do in different ways in the community. The community support specialist position was created in COVID during obviously very stressful times and trying to help people navigate all the new resources that came up quickly. And we did expect that to end. However, Folks know this isn't just like, oh, COVID's done. There's still a lot of challenges for community people to navigate getting resources. And so that was part of why that was added from the dais, as Bethany said.

And just to clarify, those additions occurred during the budget process and not at the time of the approval of the human services funding plan.

Can you maybe describe the difference for Councilmember Snyder?

So the funding plan that's identified is the amount of money that's allocated from the city, the 1%. And so they are identifying what the money will go towards. During the 25, 26 budget process, the additional items that you identified were added at that time during the budget process. So as indicated, Joe will come up and talk about the next budget cycle, the 27-28. That would be a time to have discussions about some of those items that were not funded as a part of the current proposed human services funding plan, if that makes sense whatsoever.

So they might be financed in other budgets? Yes.

Council may need to request those that are important to us.

OK. Because when I look at the line items, it looked like almost all of the budgets between the different budget years are pretty much flat. But the Hope Link Food Fund jumped between $25,000 to $26,000, between $60,000 to $70,000. But then in 27-28, it goes back down to $60,000.

Right. When the employment program at Hope Link ended, we moved that $10,000 to the food. So then we went to its original kind of funding amount the next year.

OK. It's a one-time funding, not reoccurring funding.

OK. Maybe I'll just sit back and try and understand. But I guess I was just going off of this report here.

Are you talking specifically about the food? I'm sorry.

Well, the human services budget. Isn't that what's under discussion right now? Correct.

just to confirm what Bristol was saying, that annual amount that you see on the screen right now, that little over a million dollars, that is what, by policy and budget, that is in the budget that we are projecting for 27 and 28. By policy, like I said, we spend 1% of our reoccurring general fund revenues. That's kind of the first piece of the puzzle. There are other pieces of the revenue puzzle. It's decently complicated. In 25 and 26, In response to the Human Services Strategic Plan, Bristol recommended an additional $125,000 on top to be added to this process. And so you add that up. You add the Lake Forest Park Senior Center that just has an established line item in our budget. The opioid settlement added. We have some restricted revenues that come from the state that we have to spend on domestic violence or substance abuse. And so it all wraps up into this one million and change and so as Bristol indicated the one-time funding come comes from the dais as during the budget discussions and while it's not part of this human services funding plan as presented each fall it does kind of get wrapped up in our other contracts and in the work that we do you know moving forward um okay so uh

For clarification and straightforwardness, that would be good to make a note of some kind of asterisk when it says that the budget is not funded after the CSS was not going to be funded beyond 2026, et cetera.

Yeah, we do indicate that the, I'm sorry, Community Support Specialist funding ends at the end of this year in the report. So it's...

Right, but it's not indicated that it's being financed elsewhere.

Well, it's not being financed elsewhere. It's in our budget. It just is not being financed from our Human Services Funding Plan recommendations. I'm sorry, I misunderstood you.

Yeah, that's the piece that I'm missing. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm reading it in its own...

So this is a... Yeah, the one-time funding is additional and on top of the Human Services Funding Plan. I could have made that more clear. Thank you. OK. Thanks.

Council Member Adomasu. Thank you. Great presentation. I just want to look at this El Nino. is here, and it's working its way up north towards us. So the temperature increases right now are like nothing that's been seen before. So this winter in 2027 could be a very unique situation. So I would like to look at this. What are some human services needs that we could be facing that would be extraordinary due to El Nino? So flooding, winds, storms, that type of thing. Just keep that in top of mind when we're looking at what services could be needed as a unique year.

And you're exactly right. We kind of changed it from saying that it's like cold weather shelter. It is severe weather funding. And so in the past, in our contract with KCRHA, they have used it for heat and smoke. relief, whether that's water bottles and towels and things like that provided. Their tiered system in terms of the winter storms do relate to wind and flooding as well. So that is something that we were not offering previously here when we were running it on our own. It was just snow and cold. So I think it's a real benefit to have that regional approach. They really do have KCRAJ, one thing that was really great about the ILA and the regional work together was the severe weather response. They hold daily calls, which they'll still plan to hold with providers, with cities who are interested if they're seeing pockets of things or they were able to provide pretty quickly supplies as needed. And so to still have that, again, regional approach is really key. But we are not locked into a weather, just the cold weather, where we realize and recognize that that funding would go for heat as well and smoke. Because we all know that smoke is smoke season a lot of the times at the end of summer. So thank you for that comment.

Any other questions from council tonight? So it looks like you're scheduled to come back on September 28. And so there is time to ask any clarifying questions from the community, from council members between now and the 28th. Thank you very much. Thank you. Do I need to officially close the public hearing? Oh, now it's closed. OK. Officially close the public hearing. Next item on the agenda is election of a temporary presiding officer for the council's next meeting on September 21st, 2026. That's next Monday. Both Deputy Mayor Pobey and I will be absent from that council meeting. Council 2.3a states that in the absence of the mayor and deputy mayor, council shall elect one of its members to act as a temporary presiding officer. So for this election, I will call for nominations for a temporary presiding officer. You may nominate one person at a time. When there are no further nominations, I'll call for a vote in the order the nominations were made. Only affirmative votes will be taken, and that's by a raise of hand. Deputy Mayor Pobey?

I'd like to nominate Council Member Scully.

I respectfully decline. Been there, done that. Let's let somebody who hasn't done it do it.

Councilmember Roberts. I, in that vein, I nominate Councilmember Snyder.

Any other nominations? OK. Those in favor of Councilmember Snyder serving as the temporary presiding officer on September 21, 2026, please raise your hand. OK. Congratulations. There is a script. There is a script. OK. Excellent. Thank you so much. Did I cover everything? Great. To be official, say, OK, Valerie Snyder has received a majority vote and is elected temporary presiding officer at the September 21st council meeting. The next item on the agenda is discussion of ordinance number 1070, authorizing a 0.01% sales and use tax to fund supporting services that assist children and their families. Joe Branstadter, welcome and thank you for presenting the staff report.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Joe Branstetter. I'm the Administrative Services Director for the City of Shoreline. Tonight I'll be providing a brief overview of the new Children's and Family Sales Tax Authority. This is a discussion item tonight. Based on Council direction, the ordinance would return on September 28th for potential adoption. The Washington Legislature authorized cities and counties to impose a new 0.01% sales and use tax in 2026. Many sales and use revenue options are one-tenth of 1%, or 0.1. This tax is one-one-hundredth of a percent, or 0.01. Revenues are restricted to eligible services that support children, youth, and families. We estimated that this tax would generate approximately $130,000 to $145,000 annually for Shoreline. For consumers, the impact is relatively small. Shoreline's sales tax rate would increase from 10.5% to 10.51%, or one cent on a $100 taxable purchase. State law caps the combined city and county tax at 0.01%. We've heard from Representative Rod Dombowski's office that legislation is being proposed at the county level, and we believe that there is support to implement this tax soon by the county. Staff is proposing to use approximately $100,000 annually for the youth and teen mental health services, continuing on-site behavioral health services that currently were one-time supported or supported with grant revenue in the past. The remaining $30,000 to $45,000 would expand the rental assistance program, which is funded through HopeLink. These would provide an ongoing revenue source for services that there is already a demand for, rather than relying on one-time funding. One important consideration is that if King County adopts the tax and Shoreline does not, that tax would still be collected in the city of Shoreline, but the revenues would support countywide services. By adopting it locally, Shoreline can retain the revenue and direct it towards eligible services that benefit our community. If Council is supportive tonight, the ordinance would return on September 28th. we need to notify the Department of Revenue no later than October 15th for collection to begin January 1 of 2027. If we do not notify Department of Revenue by October 15th, the earliest we could start collecting revenue would be April 1st. These programs that I mentioned earlier are part of the proposed 27-28 budget you will see later tonight that would be funded by this tax. With that, I will open up to questions and discussion from council.

Great. Thank you. Any questions from council? Council Member Scully.

Thank you. So is it correct that we are not planning to fund the youth and teen center mental health therapist in the upcoming budget cycle?

We would fund it with one time, with council's direction, with one time. This would allow us to continually fund it with the revenue from that. Because right now, we do not have a revenue source to cover those services.

Well, the general fund, right? So what's being proposed right now is that service will continue based upon a general fund one-time allocation.

Reoccurring.

Reoccurring one time. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So it's, yeah. So I don't love this. And I don't love that we're in this box. And thank you, you answered my question. Because, I mean, we've budgeted for what we need. And this just seems to me like insulting money on the top. And then we get to put more back in the general fund. But I don't. I don't like being sort of forced to enact a tax. And I'm kind of halfway inclined to vote no on this, although I'm keeping an open mind to hear what other council members say. I understand that if we don't do it, the county is going to. So the tax rate is going to go up regardless. But I sort of don't want us to be forced into making that decision.

Thank you, Council Member Scully. It's happening regardless. So that's what you're saying, basically, the King County.

We don't have anything formal from King County yet, but from our intergovernmental team, it sounds like King County is working on proposed legislation to enact it soon.

To enact it soon. So we potentially, if we voted yes and notified before October 15th, could potentially preempt. or like start collecting that prior to King County or no? Would it be dependent on King County also?

No. So if this council were to enact this ordinance at September 28th meeting, we would start collecting that 0.01%. on January 1, which would allow those programs to be funded. If the county were to enact it and we were not, we would still continue, Shoreline residents would still continue to pay that tax. If we both enact it, it would then revert to Shoreline, the 0.01%. Understood.

Is there a scenario where we would enact it and King County does not?

I don't believe that's possible, but that's ultimately up to King County. They could potentially be voted down in King County. I don't want to speak for the county, but our indications are that there's momentum for it to pass.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Roberts.

Mayor, you asked some of my questions, and I will repeat the question again. Could we put into, in a different way, could we put into the ordinance a provision saying that this would only go into effect if King County passed an ordinance?

We could, yes. I would caution that within the budget, these programs are intended to be funded by this tax. And if we do not enact it, let's say it doesn't go into effect until April 1st, we would probably have to use one-time dollars to supplement those to cover the ongoing costs. So that would be the risk with that. And we would have to... We could not notify Department of Revenue at that point until King County were to enact the tax. So there would be some risk with delaying it, yes.

And Mayor, I did have a conversation with Councilman Rod Dembowski, who indicated that Councilmember Barone is requesting legislation to go before the County Commission to enact that one hundredth of a percent. They have not designated a date yet, but he indicated his support for Councilmember Barone's request.

I do fully anticipate that King County will enact this. And so the question ultimately is, do we want to be in control of the funds, or do we want King County to be in control of the funds that are raised in Shoreline? To me, that's a simple answer. But I do agree completely with Councilmember Scully in that the legislature has put us in a very difficult box that essentially saying, you're going to raise sales taxes. And sales taxes are the most regressive form of taxation we have. And so when the legislature gives us the sales tax authority, It's really not great. Now, the only sort of saving grace about this is that, well, the two saving graces, it's just one hundredth of a percent, which is small, comparatively. But at the same time, the other saving grace is the fact that this will go directly to help the people who need the help the most, at least from what we're trying to do. So, I mean, in that sense, we are doing good things with this. And it's not just sort of into the general city dollar. I mean, I do think that we do a very good job of managing our budget. But I mean, at least we can say with this one, it is going to the people, specifically going to the people who need the most help. So I, like Council Member Scully, am sort of on the fence of whether I want to approve this or not. But I really wish the legislature would give us better tools and not regressive tools. to fund some of our issues. And we'll talk about this when we talk about the budget. But I mean, cities are hurting. And fortunately, the city of Shoreline is in a very good place compared to our peers. But even with being in a good place compared to our peers, the financial forecast that the city manager is going to present still is a little bit to tighten things up. So thank you, Mayor.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Council Member Adomasu.

First of all, thank you for keeping it to six slides. That's the least slides I've ever seen from you. You're in for a long presentation next. I was like, page 78? No? OK. In seriousness, I'm in full support of this. The reason why is because this is pretty much a prevention program. So when people look at crime statistics, safety in our community, A lot of funding goes to catching the water coming out of the faucet, jails, more police, these programs. When you put funding to turn off the faucet, to help children and families, this is where we see the biggest effect. So I'm in full support of this. Thank you. Council Member Mork.

Thank you. I'm sorry to keep asking clarifying questions, and I do appreciate your presentation. If shoreline puts through point one and King County puts through point one, is 0.01 in each case, excuse me. Is the total 0.02, or is the total still 0.01?

It would be 0.01.

OK, so it's not going to get more. We're not doubling.

No. OK. No, it's not. In the next presentation, we'll talk about the criminal justice tax that King County has enacted. And that one is 0.1, and that one can be doubled up. But this one is at the maximum 0.01.

Thank you. I also do not feel ambiguous about this. I am very concerned that we have enough money to take care of the very poorest. And I would rather it not be spent by the county and instead spent by the city in ways that we already have. So I am in support. Thank you.

I don't think they're, oh, Council Member Scully.

I'm just going to ask that you do prepare an alternative that, as Council Member Roberts suggested, where it's only enacted if King County does it to give us control.

Thank you. So we will see you again on this topic on the 28th. And I don't know, maybe there's a chance we'll have a clearer indication from King County and their timing and their direction in those two weeks. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is discussion of the 2026 second quarter financial report and a preliminary view of the 2027-2028 biennial budget and 2027-2032 capital investment improvement plan. So Joe is back, joined by Christy Hopkins to present the staff report.

This presentation will be a few more slides than the last one, unfortunately. As mentioned, I'm Joe Branstad. I'm the Administrative Services Director. I'm joined by Christy Hopkins, our Finance and Budget Manager. Tricia Jonke will be joining us later to talk about CIP-specific projects later in the presentation. So tonight's presentation is not the delivery of the 2728 proposed budget. Tonight's presentation is intended to provide context and background for what is considered as the staff prepares the budget. It includes assumptions we made with regard to the city's anticipated revenues and expenditures for the next year. Transmittal of the 2728 budget is planned for the October 12th meeting. Tonight, we will cover our 2026 preliminary year-end estimates, and we'll give you the first look and the preview of the 27-28 proposed budget. You do not need to make any decisions tonight. The proposed budget will be presented on October 12th, like I mentioned, and there will be four other public budget discussions scheduled before final adoption on November 16th. The budget supports the implementation and priorities of the goals outlined in the 25-29 City Council Strategic Plan. In addition to the Council Strategic Plan priorities, it also aligns with comprehensive plans and master plans.

Okay, so based on your investments, the 25-26 actuals are projected to come in ahead of budget. The revenues are expected to exceed by $6.2 million. This is largely due to interest income, sales tax, and utility and franchise fees. Expenditures are anticipated to be under by $2.97 million. This is largely due to cost savings from vacant positions and police contract savings also from vacant positions.

So before we move to the 10-year financial sustainability model, I want to provide some context on our projected general fund balance through the next biennium. Based on our current projections, we are expected to begin the next biennium in 2027 with an approximate fund balance of $45.6 million in the general fund. Not all of that balance is necessarily available. We first account for required operating reserves, contingencies, insurance reserves, and proposed one-time budget requests in the city manager's budget. And we also do set-asides to support designated projects for future use. After these adjustments, we project approximately $16.8 million of unassigned fund balance at the end of the next biennium, or about 24% of general fund expenditures. That 24% represents a healthy financial position and provides flexibility. It reflects years of conservative budgeting practices and strong financial management. which is also recognized in our recent bond rating upgrade from a AA plus to AAA. At the same time, fund balance is a one-time resource. We need to be very cautious about using it to support ongoing expenditures, particularly when ongoing revenues are not keeping pace with the ongoing costs. So there's really two realities at the same time. We're in a strong financial position today, but we face long-term structural challenges that we'll go into more detail in the 10-year financial model. To help manage that, staff is proposing to set aside $3 million this biennium to provide additional flexibility for the next biennium as well. This does not solve the structural imbalance, but it gives us more flexibility to address it and maintain our service level that our residents expect.

Okay, looking at operating revenues. So our revenue projection assumptions vary by revenue type. Forecasting methodologies for each source is applied to our year-end estimates for 26. And it's based on various information we get from King County Assessors and Office of Economic Financial Analysis, Puget Sound Economic Forecaster, Municipal Research and Service Center, City of Seattle, and sometimes we adjust our year-end estimates and forecast based on what we are seeing currently in the economy. So currently, looking at King County's projections, we are projecting a 1% decrease in assessed value, which will bring our rate to $1.56. We will start getting preliminary worksheets from King County shortly. So you can see from sales tax, we are projecting a small amount of growth in 27 and 28, and our B&O tax goes along with our sales tax increase. And utility and franchise fees, you're seeing a 4.5% increase in 27 and 2.5 in 28. So this goes on to our 10-year financial sustainability model. And as a reminder, our model models out our ongoing revenue and expenditures for the general fund. In this scenario, it includes all the proposed 27-28 ongoing supplemental requests. and includes the levy lid lift passing in 2029, increasing only by CPI where there is no room to reset the levy rate. In this scenario, we have a $19.9 million deficit over the six years of the next levy lid lift. This scenario would require use of one-time funding to cover those and then also start having to do cost-cutting measures to balance the forecast. This next scenario includes all the scenarios from the previous slide, but it also includes 99% expenditures. We usually don't spend 100% of our budget. So this generally is where we're at. And in this scenario, we're at $14.7 million deficit over the six years. So looking at the next slide, so in this model, we include everything from the previous slides and adding that 0.1% criminal justice sales tax. One of our largest expenses is our criminal justice expense, which generally grows higher than CPI. In this scenario, we have a $6.5 million deficit over the six years of the levy lived. So next we are going to go over the supplemental requests are included in the city managers proposed budget Tonight we will start the council question matrix where council can ask questions on any supplemental requests or other budget items We will also be having department presentations coming up where council will have the opportunity to ask department directors questions on any of their supplemental requests and Due to limited capacity highlighted in the 10-year financial forecast, you saw staff were directed to limit ongoing costs. No new ongoing FTEs are fully funded by the general fund. We will run through these quickly. More detail is in the staff report. So on the screen, you can see the ongoing requests for the general fund. Next slide, you can see the ongoing requests in the general fund that are fully revenue-backed. Here you'll see the general fund limited-term FTEs. You see that there are four limited-term FTEs and three extensions of current limited-term positions. And then here we have one-time requests for the general fund. You see administrative services department and those from the city manager's office. And next, you see that we have one from human resources, and then we have several from parks, recreation, and community services. Next, you'll see the one-time requests for planning and community development. And then continued one-time requests for public works. And next, we have our ongoing funds for multiple funds. So we have our fleet replacements. And then you have public works, again, ongoing requests that are funded by multiple funds. And then one-time requests, so administrative services and city manager's office, and then a couple from PRCS, and then public works. And then utility funds, so there's one ongoing, and then three one-times. And then there are a few requests for our capital funds.

I know we're going through these very quickly. I would reference you to the staff report. There's a lot of detail in there in the council questions matrix for specific questions.

So this slide shows the net impacts of the preliminary budget, including all of those supplemental requests. So there's a net four and a half positions in the operating funds. Some of those additions are partially revenue-backed. So fee schedules, so many of our fee schedules increased by June to June CPI, which was 4.53%. And parks and transportation impact fees increased by construction cost index, which was 0.39%. There are other changes to fee schedules listed on the screen that are highlighted in the stock report. And now I will invite Trish to come up here and talk about the CIP.

Good evening, Council. As part of this process, we do update our six-year CIP, which is now 2027 through 2032. I'm going to keep this very brief. And what we've really done here today is highlight the new projects that have been added to the CIP. So these may be projects that have been around for a while, but we are now adding them into the six-year CIP. So in the General Capital Fund, you can see we have just one new project In the facilities major maintenance, we've identified two new projects again on existing facilities. Those are rather small projects in general for that fund. And then in the roads capital fund, we have added some new projects primarily. All of these are currently in the transportation improvement plan that you all reviewed and approved in June, with the exception of the two new irrigation and landscaping improvements for Aurora, which has been an emerging issue. And then in the Surface Water Capital Fund, following the Surface Water Master Plan that you approved last year, we have three new projects or programs that we are adding into the six-year CIP. And then similarly, in the wastewater, we have some new projects that largely come out of our strategic asset management plan where we need to add in really some lift station repairs and then looking forward to updating our rate study in 27, 28 to inform the next budget cycle.

All right, so here we have the schedule. So on October 12th, we'll have the transmittal of the proposed biennial budget and CIP. October 19th, we'll start the department presentations and then they'll continue on the 26th and also the presentation of the CIP. November 2nd will have public hearing on the property tax revenue sources and the proposed biannual budget and then again we'll have another public hearing on November 16th as well as action on setting the property tax the impact fee schedules and Also, there'll be one final budget amendment for the 2526 budget. I

That concludes our presentation. We'll certainly open it up to any questions that council may have.

OK, yes, right there. So two months, we're kicking off two months of discussion about the budget. Lots of time to ask questions and get them answered. And for those who haven't been through the process before, the question matrix will be, we ask a question, and whether you answer it here or not, it will be logged into the matrix with the answer for us to continue to refer back to over this process until we finalize everything.

Thank you for that clarification, Mayor. This is truly intended to be the preview and intended to inform you the direction we're heading.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Scully.

Thank you. And you just did what I was going to do. So I'm going to do it again, but in a different way, just to emphasize. And I think this is one of our strengths as a city. The only downside is if you're interested in the budget as a citizen, you've got to sit through a bunch of meetings. But it really lets us get our heads around it and understand things. So this was the preview. And I just want to call out the question matrix again and ask you to explain to us how we get questions into that thing and what the staff preferred mechanism is.

So generally, you could ask questions on the presentation. So tonight, if you had a question, we would then put it on the matrix. But a lot of times, we will get them by email. So you'll email us, and then we'll put it on the matrix.

Who do you prefer we email?

I would say that you would include Bristol, and John, and me, and Joe. And then we will direct it to the staff. that would be answering it if we don't know the answer to it.

Great. Councilmember Roberts.

Thank you. I mean, I do appreciate this, and I do appreciate the work that's been done. I have three quick questions. Again, if you can't answer them, I just put them on the matrix. We haven't talked about the matrix. We'll talk about the matrix a few more times today, I'm sure. The first question is, when we look at the sort of six-year, 10-year forecasts, usually we see them sort of as a snapshot of this year. And this is how it's presented this time, too. Can you sort of go back a few years and sort of what are the trends of how those forecasts have changed over time? So because, I mean, looking at these sometimes as a snapshot of, okay, this is where we are one year, and this is how we forecast out to 2032 or something like that. How does that change? Can you provide something that shows how these forecasts have changed from like two years ago or three years ago to today?

Sure, yeah, we can look back at what we've presented prior and, yeah, we can see, like, what differences there are. Yeah, I mean, a large part of it, if looking through, we did have a significant amount of base budget adjustments that increased our expenses. significantly than what we had priorly projected.

I'm sure. I mean, I know there's adjustments. Some of these are forecasts. But when we are looking and talking about sort of protected deficits, we have talked about projected deficits for a long time. And so if we look at this as a long-time snapshot, we can be like, oh my gosh. Or we can know that, OK, these deficits have projected for a while. Staff has done an amazing job. And I think council has done a very good job of rating in our impulses. But sometimes we don't see that. and sometimes these budgets aren't presented in a way that people can look back and see, oh, okay, this is normal.

Yeah, generally in the outer years, things are less clear on what's going to happen. I think the difference, kind of what we're seeing now, is we don't really have the ability to reset our rate, so it's just going to increase by CPI. And our expenses generally have been increasing higher than our revenue.

And that's part of the context I want to see, is what is different about these revenues than in the past, or revenue forecasts than in the past. The second question I have, I think you maybe will answer this quickly, but looking at the new proposed FTEs, it looked like they were all or they were mostly revenue-based, and there's some sort of revenue coming in to offset the FTEs. A general statement?

Right. The urban forester, for example, would be funded by the King County Parks Bond. As far as I mentioned, there are no new ongoing general fund FTEs. We do have a conversion of a 0.75 staff accountant position to one, which is at impact about $40,000. But as far as general fund overall new additions, the total amount is less than half a million dollars. Staff has been very conservative, recognizing our challenges going forward and limiting our ongoing additions to the budget. It's why you see a lot of one times. I know that's still challenging, but we really want to be mindful of not adding to the ongoing situation.

Yeah, it just seems, just wanted to make sure that, for clarity, that we're talking about, when we're adding FTEs and talking about sort of forecasted deficits, that these are all paid for. Correct. Or mostly paid for. Or funded by other sources. Or funded by other sources.

Utilities, for example.

And the other question I have, and this will definitely need to be on the matrix, is I've noticed in this proposed proposal that there's a lot of new capital projects for park maintenance, including playgrounds, including replacement of turf fields. I'm wondering if there is a, when we think about these ongoing maintenance project things for vehicles, we have a replacement fund. that's sort of built in for that. I'm wondering to what extent can we or should we have a replacement, sort of thinking about replacement funds for some of these ongoing park maintenance projects. And that's just a question, so I don't think you have an answer here, but thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Other questions, Deputy Mayor?

I do.

Okay. Council Member Mork.

Thank you. As we're going back in time, that CPI inflation number is quite high. If we could have an understanding of what that's looked going back for the same kind of period that the other matrix question will be, I think it might be helpful for us to understand how that impacts what we're talking about.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Council Member Adomasu.

Hi. Three quick questions. Probably not on the matrix. One of the questions I have is from the staff report. It's on page 9B23. It's the comprehensive plan climate element, $200,000 one time. The paragraph goes on to discuss, due to the Growth Management Act, blah, blah, blah. It discusses all about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What I'm wondering is, does it also include other climate elements, such as reducing heat island effect, increasing tree canopy, those types of things? i'm not sure the answer to that matrix and have our planning and community development give you a thorough answer for sure there'll definitely be an opportunity to discuss that at the point where we move forward with that contract okay and then um is this the time to let you know of any potential amendments i might uh put forth

I would work with Bristol on that. I think any time we know in advance what U.S. Council wants to do, it helps us prepare and provide you alternatives or other methods. So if you do have anything, I would encourage you to send it to Bristol, unless he feels otherwise.

And as with other budget cycles, I will be sending out an email to Council saying, what are some of your requests? So that we can then put them all together. I think it worked really well last budget... that we had the opportunity to discuss it. And it wasn't 11th hour. We had the opportunity to discuss as a full council.

OK. I look forward to that. Thank you.

Coming around to a topic from earlier tonight, let's say a council member or multiple members wanted to revisit the holiday baskets and the grocery cards. What would that process look like?

Sure, I think you would want to email Bristol that you would like to see an amendment go forward to fund a specific project or program. And then we can queue those up as budget allows us to ultimately, it's council's decision on what they want in the budget.

OK. Any other questions from council tonight? Much more to come on this topic if you don't have anything else from us or for us. And I think that was the end of our presentation, end of our business tonight. Council is adjourned.