At the November 25 Council Special meeting, the Mukilteo City Council voted 5- 2, Councilmembers Dixon and Steve Schmalz against, to adopt the biennial budget for the years 2025-2026. The adopted budget, little changed from the mayor’s 2025-2026 preliminary budget, draws down the general fund ending balance, our savings account, from $5 million today, to $1 million in 2026, and hands off a near $7 million deficit in 2027-2028.
Asked to produce cuts, staff did produce cuts of ¾ of 1% for each year. The Council voted down every single cut proposed by Councilmember Schmalz and me, with the exception of our out of state travel moratorium.
Council refused to adopt significant expenditure cuts, refused to implement a hiring freeze, refused to implement a freeze on non-represented employee raises, and refused to eliminate the salary commission which will have the power, by law, to implement immediate salary increases for all elected members. The official financial forecast for the adopted budget is negative $10 million in the general fund by 2029.
One good idea emerged
While we disagree on the Mukilteo Budget, we all agree to explore and pursue a State sponsored equipment leasing program called LOCAL. This approach should reduce our equipment spending outlay while allowing us to obtain critically needed equipment, such as vehicles and fire apparatus, that had been deferred for years. With focus, we can begin to implement this program in the spring, an effort I heartily support.
They bet the farm on speeders
The Mukilteo City Council adopted the vision of the mayor’s unrealized revenue ideas, which will neither stem the current rate of growth of the operating deficit, nor replenish the ending fund balance over time.
Over 90% of these unrealized revenues are in the form of four (4) automated speed cameras installed in 2025. Mind you, Lynnwood has over a dozen red light cameras and an unspecified number of speed cameras. We will have zero red light cameras and four speed cameras. Â
An optimistic model forecasts the cameras will generate $1.2 million in 2025 and $2.5 million a year from 2026 through 2029. I am skeptical we can generate significant revenues from so small and limited a program. Even with this new revenue included, the new 5-year forecast is an operating budget surplus of $600,000 in 2025 and a deficit in 2026 of $500,000, which grows annually to a deficit of $1.3 million in 2029. But because these revenues are either completely speculative, derived from incomplete agreements beyond our control, or require successful ballot actions, Council excluded them from the adopted budget and included the optimistic model as an exhibit.
Driven off the financial cliff?
Rather than take hard choices today, in the event the new revenues do not come in as hoped for, the Council has made no contingency plans, voting instead to bet the future of the City on speed camera revenue.
Councilmember Schmalz and I voted against this budget. It is an irresponsible budget and bets the City’s solvency on an unproven camera program.
If the camera revenues do not materialize as hoped for, we will have squandered the bulk of our ending fund balance by year end 2026. Prudent citizens can look at the City’s camera statistics, as State law requires it be published. If we are not issuing 400+ tickets per week, we will not be on track to generate this level of revenue, and you should demand action.
We are currently operating a $1.6 million operating budget deficit. We do this by spending down our general fund ending fund balance. That is a luxury we will soon not have, as we will eviscerate this ending fund balance if we stay on the current course. This is why two of us say the City is being driven off the proverbial financial cliff by the mayor, aided and abetted by most of the Mukilteo City Council.
Mike Dixon, Mukilteo Councilman
Mike Dixon was elected to a four-year term in 2023. Born and raised in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he has made Mukilteo his home since 2007. Mike is currently a cleantech executive with GM Energy, owns and operates an insurance agency in Old Town, and is a solar farm investor in the Caribbean. Mike is also a three-time elected water sewer commissioner, former president of the Board of the Alderwood Water & Wastewater District, and current commissioner of the Mukilteo Water & Wastewater District. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management science and an MBA, both from MIT.
According to his bio, his council goals are building a cleantech cluster in Mukilteo, developing the waterfront as a commercial and recreational economic hub in the region, marketing Mukilteo as a welcoming and inclusive city, building policy to support the middle class and ensure our city’s sustainability, working collaboratively to ensure strong and robust long term financial planning and annual budgets, and partnering regionally to help Mukilteo remain an inclusive, sustainable, vibrant and growing city.
COMMENTARY DISCLAIMER: The views and comments expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Lynnwood Times nor any of its affiliate.
Author: Lynnwood Times Contributor
2 Responses
Revenues are great. Creative or not. But–as always–politicians go in one direction. Spend. Never asking if every budget line item is a NEED or WANT. My guess? Most are the latter. Cut first, then evaluate.
Hope your house doesn’t catch fire when the fire department is shut down to save money.