Edmonds City Council Finance Committee Meeting - August 19, 2026
Edmonds City Council Finance Committee Meeting - August 19, 2026
The Finance Committee met at 1:00 PM to receive the first reading of the June 2026 Monthly Financial Report. Staff presented a detailed review of revenues and expenditures, highlighting favorable trends and areas requiring attention. Council members asked clarifying questions and requested follow-up on several items.
Discussion Items
- June 2026 Monthly Financial Report: Kisha from Finance presented the report. Key highlights: sales tax revenues up $200,000 year-to-date and 4.8% over the same period last year; salaries and benefits $1.2 million below budget due to approximately 25 vacant funded positions; overall citywide revenues at 53% of budget. Construction permits and building plan reviews significantly exceeded expectations. The city's cash balance is projected to end the year at $2.44 million. Concerns noted: real estate excise taxes down (18.29% year-to-date), street construction fund delays due to Highway 99 project permitting, and municipal arts fund revenues down.
- Councilmember Ronette requested subcategorization of non-departmental expenditures for better transparency, noting it acts as a "junk drawer."
- A council member pointed out a discrepancy in the May cash balance figure: originally reported as $2,943,269 in the May report, but revised to $3,344,644 in the June report. Staff will investigate the cause.
- Questions were raised about the building maintenance fund (016) plan following the departure of manager Tom Sullivan. The Mayor confirmed that six people are now working on the plan and that all buildings will be addressed.
- Council President asked about unplanned election fees of $13,000 and Highway 99 stage three permit delays from WSDOT. Staff will follow up on both.
- A council member inquired about the public financial dashboard website. The Mayor indicated it is targeted for 2027 and mentioned parallel efforts for a public works project dashboard and an enhanced GIS infrastructure dashboard.
- Clarification was provided on arbitrage: it represents the differential between interest earned and interest paid on bond proceeds; the city is not allowed to profit from bond funds.
Key Outcomes
- The committee received the June 2026 Monthly Financial Report as a first reading. No formal vote was taken; the item will proceed to the full City Council.
- Staff will provide follow-up reports on: detailed breakdown of non-departmental expenditures, explanation of the May cash balance discrepancy, details on election fees and Highway 99 delays, and an update on the financial dashboard implementation timeline.
Meeting Transcript
Oh two of us are here we can get started. Well give it one more second. Limit extra if we want to log off. I don't see her on the list now. Okay. Well, Kisha is here, so uh I'm gonna call the meeting to order. Today is August 18. We're gonna call the finance committee meeting to order one pm. We have uh Tisha here to take us through our Zoom's financial report. Thank you. Um committee chair. Um looking at our June monthly report, um, I will kind of take the stance of going through it through the beginning to the end again and picking out some highlights and giving a little more detail on pieces that I feel like would be of interest to council and the public. Um as noted in the highlights, we are up 200 for sales tax. We are up 283,000 year to date for budget and over 4.8 percent over same time last year. I know the mayor shared with you, I believe it was either early, it was last week, time flies, um that we were up seven percent year to date, and those were actually July numbers, so we're still looking at June. So that's the discrepancy in those numbers. Um our salaries and benefits, looking specifically at our general operating fund. We are 1.2 million below where we would plan to be for budget year to date, and behind last year, same time last year by 226,000. So um seeing labor savings both to what we planned to spend, but also to how we did last year. So good um, I mean shouldn't say always good news because having appropriate staffing is important, but it is a cost savings. Looking citywide across all funds, including our general operating fund, uh the city is 2.4,000, excuse me, 2.4 million below budget um uh for year to date and behind last year 200, excuse me, 87,000 to same time last year. Digging into our tax revenues overall, we're at 53% of budget year to date, with sales tax representing at 52% of budget, so just a bit ahead of what we would have expected. Property taxes are also showing a bit ahead of what we expected at 53%, and our other utility taxes, which includes our utility tax, excuse me, our other taxes, which includes our utility tax is at 53%. So all three of those main tax revenues are trending a bit ahead. Looking at our other revenue categories, licenses and permits are up at six 59%. This is mainly due to specifically our construction permits coming in at 261% ahead of budget with an additional 65,000 over the 100% budget, and we are only 50% through the year. Um intergovernmental revenues is slightly down to where we would expect, and that's basically looks like primarily due to a number of grants being not received yet, and I'll be um speaking with our departments who are those expecting those grants to find out if there's any concern with that revenue, or if there's um or if that's just something we'll expect later in the year, but some uh we have a number of grants that are showing at a hundred at zero percent. Um, I know we said last month that we had only received 25% of our year-to-date liquor and marijuana excise taxes. This month we are at 100% year to date. So um I think it's more of a timing thing on this piece, and I'm not sure if we would expect any additional revenue on that later this year, but we'll continue to look at that. Charges for goods and services are at 58%, so ahead of budget. Um primarily looking at building plan reviews at a full 119% of our full budget for the year. So we're 222,000 over budget year to date in a good way over budget with revenues. And we're also seeing um a good increase in our charges for parks at 69% of our anticipated revenue for the year, and that would put that puts us at 112,000 ahead of budget. I would expect that some of that is due to the um fees that we see coming in in the summertime for our parks with um and the programs that we are running. So I'm not sure that that will be a year-end trend in that case. Our fines and penalties are at 49%, just a little under budget. So far, the the pieces that I can put together of where we're behind on that is we're a little bit down for what we anticipated for automated enforcement. We're sitting at 48% year to date for this year. And then for traffic infractions and penalties, we're only showing 27.5% of the budgeted amount so far this year. And then just a note, other financing shows at zero, that 50,000 is an interfund transfer that just has not been chosen, has not been taken yet. Moving to page five and looking at the general operating fund 001 and specifically looking at where we're at with our revenues in comparison to our expenditures. Budgeted for year to date, we we should have our revenues exceeding our expenditures by 74,000. Actual year to date, when we look at the difference between our revenues and expenditures, we're at 3.2 million. So that would put us ahead of what we would anticipate of that, what would be going into our fund balance and our cash reserves by 3.1 million year to date now. And that's due to the increase in revenues that we talked about. And then we'll look a little bit at uh obviously we spoke about staffing expenditures being down, and we'll look at some of the other expenditures later, but that's primarily what's driving that at this time. Looking at page six, our expenditures for the general fund 001 by department. Um overall, the the general fund is at 48% for our expenditures, so just slightly behind what we would anticipate for the year. Um we spoke about this last month, and I don't know that this will change, but I will reiterate the perp, the reason administrative services, which is finance, is at 55%, and that is due to additional unplanned contract services due to needing to fill in for the leave of director gold, as well as um some temporary labor help that we had for other leaves and audit support.
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