Between welcoming a new face to the dais and staring down a looming $3 million budget deficit, the Aug. 6 Burien City Council special meeting served as a stark preview of the tough choices ahead.
The evening began with the swearing-in of new Councilmember Patricia Hudson and the launch of a national hunt for a new city manager.
However, the mood turned serious as the council deliberated painful potential budget cuts. It became clear that local leadership is walking a delicate tightrope between fiscal discipline and meeting community needs.
New Councilmember & Search For City Manager Begins
This was the first meeting for new city councilmember Hudson, who was sworn in at the start. Councilmember Hudson has decades of experience in Human Resources, which the council hopes will serve them as they begin the search for a new city manager. Staff will bring on a hiring consultant, who will do a national search for appropriate candidates.
Councilmember Sam Mendez asked if the city could just do this candidate search without hiring a professional, but that was not recommended. City staff are already short handed, he was told, and experienced professionals will be able to get through the process more swiftly. They hope to onboard a new city manager by the end of the year.
Public Comments
One community member said that the public would now be in support of a levy lid lift, voluntarily raising property taxes to help support the city. This was tried recently and failed, a failure which was blamed on a lack of clear communication from the city.
Another speaker said that the majority of the current council was endorsed by the Transit Riders Union (TRU), which was described as a political pact rather than an actual union. This speaker said that these councilmembers should have recused themselves from a July 13 vote that approved $67,000 for the TRU. He said this same majority voted to fire the city manager without cause, and asked whether good city manager candidates will want to work for a city that fires their managers without cause.
A third speaker said that the TRU absolutely helps with important work like training drivers. He added that after Burien finds a new city manager, they need to prioritize finding a permanent city attorney, as the interim city attorney only attends meetings via Zoom and does not return phone calls.
Budget Study Session
According to the discussion, 75% of area cities are worried about their 2027 budgets; 38% are projecting revenue loss in the same year; and more than 20% expect to make significant cuts in expenditures. Contributing to these fiscal issues include factors that are in the state’s hands, such as unfunded mandates, outdated local revenue tools, increasing public defense costs, and lack of contribution toward infrastructure. Lobbyists are working to fix these at the state level, but meanwhile cities must make do with growing shortfalls.
Burien is facing down a $3 million annual budget shortfall. While the city currently has $26.5 million in a reserve fund, it is not recommended to use reserve funds for operating expenses. Cuts must be made.
Interim City Manager Bob Larson gave the council the same recommendation he has given other cities: Reduce expenditures to match revenue levels; then, in 2028, explore a potential levy lid lift. First, fix the imbalance; then ask the public to increase what they’re contributing.
Police services are currently 44.4% of the general fund, at just 80% staffed. According to the police contract with King County, the city must give 18 months notice before reducing any police positions. It takes another 18 months to restaff those positions when they are wanted again, adding up to a 3-year turnaround time to get back to full staffing. This makes saving money on police difficult.
Staff salaries & benefits make up 31.7% of the general fund. Changes can be made to staff health benefits, reducing cost by increasing the deductible. Many cities and companies have switched to a high deductible plan to save on this expense, so Burien would maintain competitive benefits for staff.
Operating expenses amount to 22.9%. Passing credit card fees on to users was mentioned as one way to reduce operating expenses. Currently the city covers this fee. When paying for permitting or parks services, users would still be able to avoid paying the credit card fee by using cash or a check.
The city can also reduce staff hours. This will slow down the time for permit review. They can eliminate grant programs for arts and culture. They can stop putting up seasonal lighting downtown, or hanging baskets of flowers. They could stop operating the town square fountain, and reduce city hall hours.
Deputy Mayor Hugo Garcia was concerned about equity regarding cuts in service, and asked for some kind of analysis of which communities would be most impacted. Finance Director Casey Headley said everyone is going to feel it pretty hard. The city is already running lean, and cuts will hurt pretty much all across the board.
Four options were presented to the council, with varying amounts of cuts and utilization of reserve funds. Councilmember Alex Andrade expressed strongly that she supported going along with City Manager Bob Larson’s plan of making cuts as needed without tapping the reserve. However, the majority of the council preferred an option that utilizes some of the reserve to maintain staffing as much as possible. They particularly wanted to hold onto the code enforcement and assistant planner positions.
Councilmember Kevin Schilling would not choose an option, but said it will take many cuts and revenue increases to balance things out. He added that some people in the community were very vocally opposed to the last levy lid lift when it was on the ballot. If it had passed, he thought, we would have solved this issue by now. Councilmember Andrade added that people had been actively spreading misinformation about the levy, which led to its failure.
A new levy will cost the city money to put it on the ballot, as well as to get the word out to the community about why they might want to support it. The economic situation has changed since the last levy lid lift failed, but not necessarily for the better. A consultant would have to be hired to walk the council through this process, and ways to optimize its passage. This would come at an additional cost. As the city manager said, staff cannot take this on at a time when they are already short handed.
Councilmember Sam Mendez said a new levy should be framed in the positive, rather than describing what voters will lose if they don’t approve it. He added that it should have double the runway of the last levy, allowing more time for voter education and discussion.
Mayor Sarah Moore said this is a “levy-heavy” time, and it will be hard to navigate asking voters for more money amidst so many other levies. All agencies are filling funding gaps with levies now, and many voters will only approve one per ballot. Deputy Mayor Hugo Garcia said King County will likely have a housing levy on the ballot in 2028.
Video
Below is full, raw video of this meeting:
