The Tacoma City Council convened on November 12, 2025, for a study session focused primarily on developing a comprehensive revenue strategy, with detailed discussions on a new state-authorized public safety sales tax, a "Year of Belonging" initiative, and the implementation of a centralized grant tracking system. The session also included an update on the ongoing search for a new City Manager and a review of upcoming procedural changes regarding the Transportation Benefit District.
Revenue Strategy & Public Safety Sales Tax (House Bill 2015):
"Year of Belonging" Initiative:
Centralized Grant Tracking System & Policy:
City Manager Search Update:
Councilmember Bushnell. Present. Deputy Mayor Daniels. Absent. Councilmember Diaz. Councilmember Hines. Councilmember Rumba, absent. Councilmember Sidalgay. Here. Councilmember Scott, absent. Councilmember Walker. Here. Mayor Woodards. Here. The study session material is sent to you at 11. Thank you. I uh want to apologize for starting late today. We had a few items to take care of before the council before the study session, so I apologize. But we're going to go ahead and jump in and get started, and we're going to start with our first agenda item, which is the revenue strategy. And I'd like to call on interim city manager Kim to begin the presentation. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of council. Council, we are have been discussing, bringing to council a revenue presentation for some time now for the last uh six months. We've talked in uh public about the notion of having a conversation. So Director Torillo will be presenting today just an overview of all the actions that have been taken by this council and previous councils over the last 10 years, as well as going through some of the options that are before you, and then I think we'll get into some of the substantive discussions before us for consideration here in the next 30 to six months, potentially. So I from there I'm just gonna kick it off right to to Andy. Thank you very much. Uh good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council. I'm Andy Chirulo, the city's finance director. Uh our city manager gave a good overview of what we're gonna talk about, so we'll jump right into it. Um this slide is a look back um going all the way back to the 2017-2018 biennium of all the revenue actions and restructuring uh city councils have done to increase additional dollars for the priority needs of the city. So just to orient you to the page, uh the items above that are in black are general fund actions that benefited the general fund. You can see those added up to over 18 million dollars annually in new revenues in the general fund. The items below the line in green are items that are either dedicated revenues for a specific purpose or we're restructuring that benefited um the general fund, and those actions have added up to over $36 million per year in revenues. Um so the two major takeaways from this slide are uh the city's been very active in seeking additional revenue solutions every biennium that has come up. Um it also illustrates the second big takeaway is um many of the actions that we're allowed to take are dedicated to specific purposes and don't necessarily help the general fund, as you can see. Uh there's about twice as many dollars recurring in other funds than there are in the general fund. Um we're not gonna walk through everything on this slide, but just to highlight a few things in the general fund. Way back in 2017-18, we raised animal license fees to help pay for animal control officers. Uh we've raised business license fees in 2017, 2023, and 2024. Uh we've eliminated last biennium, uh, a recent one. We eliminated the tax exemptions related to uh certain gross earnings taxes on utilities. Um in the other funds, uh, we've raised one-tenth of one percent for Tacoma Creates. The first time that was voted by the people in 2017, and you all just voted to extend that uh last month at a council meeting. We did one tenth of one percent for affordable housing, uh, and then we did the excise tax for uh tidy up Tacoma. So those were a pretty major revenue raises in recent history. Uh on the next slide is the long laundry list that you have seen before in various forms of all the revenue options available to the city at a very high level. Um so just to get oriented to the table on the far left-hand side is the uh revenue source, whether the authority is councilmanic or voter approved, the annual estimated amount of revenue it would raise and some notes to provide some more detail. Um the line uh the items above the line, the big black line in the middle of the page are councilmanic. So the councilmanic stuff is sorted on the top. The stuff below that line are require voter approval.