Olympia Finance Committee Special Meeting - January 27, 2026
Olympia City Council Finance Commmittee Special Meeting - January 27, 2026
The Olympia City Council Finance Committee held a special meeting on January 27, 2026 (noted as Monday, January 26 in the transcript but instructed to use January 27). The meeting was called to order at 4:30 PM and adjourned at 5:41 PM, lasting 71 minutes. Chair Clark Gilman presided, joined by Committee members Kelly Green (who arrived later) and Robert Vanderpool. The committee reviewed a budget snapshot on fund accounting, approved the 2026 workplan, and provided direction on renewing an investment advisory contract.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Agenda: Moved and seconded; approved unanimously by voice vote.
- Approval of Minutes (November 19, 2025): Postponed until the next meeting due to the absence of one member; no vote taken.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public spoke, either in person or online.
Discussion Items
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6.A – Budget Snapshot: The Color of Money Senior Finance Manager Joan Lutz presented an overview of how the city categorizes revenues into funds (General Fund, Special Revenue, Enterprise, Capital Project, Internal Service, and Fiduciary). She explained the restrictions and challenges of each fund type, emphasizing that General Fund is the most flexible but often strained, and that capital projects require concurrent operating funds. Committee members discussed:
- The treatment of the Development Fee Fund and Parking Fund as sub-funds within the General Fund.
- How Parks funding is restricted by the OMPD ILA but remains within the General Fund.
- City Manager Jay Burney clarified that operating maintenance is considered in capital planning, but a capital fund can hold millions without sufficient operating dollars.
- Councilmember Vanderpool inquired about the long-term funding of the Public Works Service Center; Finance Director Mike Githens explained that current indirect rates cover repair and replacement of major systems but not full replacement, and that utility rates would need to double to fully fund future replacements.
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6.B – Approval of 2026 Finance Committee Workplan Finance Director Mike Githens presented the draft workplan for 2026. Committee members requested:
- An early look at year-end projections for 2025.
- An update on new revenue sources.
- City Manager Burney suggested sharing the quarterly financial updates he receives with the committee. Additional potential budget spotlight topics were discussed, including reserve levels, revenue forecasting, sales tax sources, and legislative tax reform bills. Councilmember Vanderpool expressed interest in state tax reform bills currently under consideration. The committee also discussed integrating Priority Based Budgeting into the annual process. After discussion, the committee moved to forward the workplan to full Council.
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Investment Advisory Contract Renewal Director Githens reported that the city’s contract with Government Portfolio Advisors (GPA) expires in April 2026. The city holds approximately $170 million in investments (plus $214 million including bond proceeds) and relies on GPA for investment advice since there is no dedicated staff investment officer. GPA charges a monthly fee of about $5,000. Committee members discussed:
- The last RFP was in 2015.
- Councilmember Green supported a one-time renewal with a plan to issue an RFP before the next renewal.
- Councilmember Vanderpool agreed, noting he wants to understand the types of investments made (mostly U.S. Treasuries and other government bonds).
- Chair Gilman indicated the investment policy discussion planned for February will be important regardless of the advisory firm. No formal vote was taken; the committee reached consensus to renew the GPA contract for two years and to conduct an RFP prior to the next renewal.
Key Outcomes
- 2026 Finance Committee Workplan: Approved by a unanimous vote of 3–0 (Chair Gilman, Councilmembers Green and Vanderpool) to recommend to the full City Council.
- Investment Contract: The committee provided direction to renew the GPA contract for two years and plan a request for proposals (RFP) before the subsequent renewal.
- Direction on Staff Reports: The committee requested an early look at 2025 year-end projections and quarterly financial updates from the City Manager.
- No Action on Minutes: The November 19, 2025 meeting minutes were postponed.
- Future Agenda Items: The committee agreed to schedule a presentation on the Fire Capital Facility Plan in February, an investment policy discussion in February, and a spring overview of legislative session outcomes. The committee also discussed adding a budget spotlight on reserves and revenue forecasting to future meetings.
Meeting Transcript
All right. Good afternoon and welcome to the Monday, January 26th, 2026 meeting of the Olympia City Council Finance Committee. We have committee member Kelly Green excused, hoping to join us a little later in the meeting. Councilmember Vanderpool and myself, Clark Gilman here. And we could start with an approval of the agenda. So move. Second. All in favor. Aye. All right. Have you had a chance to review the November 19th, 2025 meeting minutes from the meeting you weren't at? Checks out. Well good. Um move. Well, good, yeah. We'll I'll tell you, we'll go ahead and we can revisit it when Kelly's here next meeting, and and just make sure that it makes sense to be it lined up with my experience of the meeting. All right. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. That brings us to item six. Oh, wait. There's no public comment. There's nobody in the room for public comment. Is there anybody online? I want. No one online to get public on it. So that brings us to a budget snapshot. We do short hits on different finance, city finance topics as a snapshot at the beginning of most of the finance committee meetings, so that we kind of all get the same language and sort of a primer on the on the different areas. So the color of money, funding sources, uses and restrictions. Thank you. For the record, Joan Lutz, Senior Finance Manager. And I am going to just turn this call off. Okay. And so the reason the color of money matters is because municipal revenue is often limited in its uses. We use the term buckets, which are basically just different funds that we use to track those revenue resources and ensure that they're spent in accordance to anything that's required by law or a policy that the council sets. Okay, so the main fund and the most flexible of the funds is the general fund. And this is the city's primary operating fund. The sources of revenue are property tax, business and occupation taxes, sales tax. So like if we make copies for public records or those types of things, that those funds would all come into here. It is the most flexible of the money. For example, uh parks is in the general fund, but it has some restrictions on what fund or some stipulations on what funds and resources must be made available to it. The challenge with the general fund is that it is since being that it is the one that can be used for basically anything and everything that's good governmental use, is that it gets uh stretched, and there is no dedicated funding source, and so it's always a uh basically a diminishing supply. The next major grouping of our funds is the special revenue funds. Um this is money that we've obtained uh and has uh legally restricted specific purposes, and so there's some compliance strings attached. Some examples of that are the home fund, cultural access tax funds, and then the transportation benefit district. We have the two funds. And the challenge for that is that the money can't be just willy-nilly moved and used, it has to be used for uh specific reasons, tracked and reported as such.
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