City Council. Today is Monday,
July 13th, 2026, and we're
going to start off this
afternoon with a biennial
budget update with Lisa Randall,
a deputy city manager. Before
that, city manager, did you
have anything you wanted to say?
>> Yeah, I do. So heading into
this budget work session, this
is the second one we're holding
with the City Council. And
we'll provide some more detail
for you today on what we've
done to address the city's
budget gap going forward. But I
think, as the City Council
knows, this is something that
we grappled with in the last
budget cycle, when we had about
a $43 million gap between
available funding and ongoing
funding needs, ongoing
expenditures. And coming into
this one, we were sitting at
about 30 million that we knew
that we were going to have to
figure out a way to be able to
address. I've approached this
budget since it's my first one
in this seat full time, as what
I'd call kind of a reset budget
for us, really encouraging the
staff and working with staff to
fundamentally understand all of
the assumptions that have gone
into crafting our prior budgets.
What do our financial policies
look like? What decisions were
made about the levels of
reserve funds? To really take a
look at how we utilize our
existing funds before we ever
would make a request to
supplement those funds with
additional revenues? And so
there are a lot of things that
this budget contemplates that
will require future decisions
by you as the City Council, to
make some policy changes for us.
But at the same time, there are
some things that I've got the
ability to pull some levers on
administratively to help us
close that gap into the next
couple of years. It does not
mean that that deficit,
structural deficit is going to
go away, but we've really
sought to give ourselves some
time on some issues that we've
identified, that we want to do
some deeper dives into over the
course of the next few years,
to really position ourselves
well into the biennium after
this one. And with that, I will
go ahead and turn it over to
Lisa.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you Lauren. Good
afternoon, mayor, Council and
community. Lisa Randall, Deputy
city manager. I'm going to go
back to the agenda. We heard
from our city manager with our
opening remarks. I'm going to
start with the recap of our
last workshop where we
presented our forecast, our
initial forecast share a little
bit of the progress we've done
to date, and give you an update
on our forecast, a summary, and
then talk about next steps. So
I'm going to go into a short
recap of our previous budget
workshop that we held on April
27th. And during that workshop,
we discussed the ongoing
structural deficit issue, which
occurs when we have more
expenses than revenues. It's an
ongoing issue and continues
unabated. We see increased
costs across the landscape,
including personnel,
professional services and
supplies. In previous to the
budget workshop, we heard from
the Community Development
Department and the Economic
Prosperity and Housing
Department, Joint Workshop on
Economic Development and
Construction, that slowing
commercial development is a
trend, and that we see that as
a downstream effect on our city
revenues. With all of these
factors and many others, the
city budget must be balanced.
So with that, we presented a
forecast in April with a total
deficit of $29.8 million over
2027 and 2028, with the deficit
continuing its growth pattern
in the next four years. And
this is in line with the
continued structural budget
deficit. And we also shared
with you that we are not
issuing across the board cuts.
Rather, we plan to take a
measured approach and return in
July to you with options and
results. And since that time,
we've done a lot of work behind
the scenes across multiple
departments. So I'm going to
share that with you. So here's
what we did. We took a hard
look at the existing budget and
financial structure. We looked
at existing funds and how they
are being used and also how
they are not being used. We
reflected back on our recent
operational decisions that made
an impact on our assumptions.
We looked at our legacy
practices and assumptions, and
some had been in place for
years, and we really took a
hard look at those. And this
was not just done in the
finance department. It occurred
across many different
departments, working with a lot
of different city team members.
So continuing the topic of how
we analyzed our reserves and
financial policies, we looked
at the possibility of
allocating existing funds.
There are some new revenue
tools. The public safety sales
tax, which you will hear about
at the conclusion of this
workshop, which will be
discussed shortly, and a new
one, HB 2442, the Children and
Family Sales Tax, which will be
discussed at a future workshop.
With this work and a status quo
budget, we are presenting a
forecast today that closes the
deficit for the 2027 2028
biennium. This forecast leaves
no room, though, for any new
initiatives or projects, and
some of the elements to close
the deficit require further
council action, which I will
highlight. So I will present a
forecast update based on the
work we've done and what's
being presented today is a
revised forecast of a $5.5
million surplus for 2027, and a
$400,000 surplus for 2028.
Notably, because we remain in a
structural deficit in the next
two biennium, we are projecting
a $105 million deficit over the
next two biennium. So the
inherent structural deficit
isn't going away and continues
to grow. So as previously
mentioned, we looked at our
legacy practices and
assumptions of budgeting and
how we structure reserves. So
I'm going to go over these next
two slides to illustrate some
of the key elements of those
practices that contribute
towards closing the deficit
that I just presented. Some are
one time and some are ongoing,
and some require further
council action. So I'll go.
I'll start from the top. The
closure of the Self-Insured
Benefits Fund. The city made
the operational decision to
switch over to the Association
of Washington Cities. Pooled
insurance rates. And previous
to that, we had a fund that
held funds to pay for the
insurance because we were
self-insured and because now we
switched over to a pooled rate,
we no longer need to hold those
funds. So we are refunding
those back to the funds that
contributed to that. That's a
one time transfer back to those
contributing funds. We are
transferring back to the
general fund interest income of
Arpa unrestricted funds. These
are unrestricted from interest
income that's been earned. And
that is that would be ongoing.
And that would be a transfer
back to the general fund. We
have an interest income
transfer back to the general
fund from the Facilities Asset
Management and Replacement Fund,
and that is a fund that is
originally source funded from
the general fund. So the
original source of funds is the
general fund. The income, the
interest income would be
transferred back to the general
fund, and that would be an
ongoing transfer back. And we
will be presenting to you
during the budget process,
during the biennium budget
recommendation, an update to
the business and license search
surcharge language, which would
allow for broader park usage.
Currently, it is restricted
towards parks, major
maintenance and capital, and
our proposal is to insert
another language, a an
amendment that would say
something to the effect of and
parks operations. So it would
say something. Parks, major
maintenance and capital and
parks operations. And so that
would allow for broader parks
usage in the future years. And
then pausing on the last item,
pausing general fund
contributions for non public
safety fleet acquisitions. And
so when I say non public safety
we're excluding patrol vehicles.
We're excluding fire vehicles.
These are non public safety
fleet acquisitions like sedans
and things that are used for
regular travel for office staff.
And so what we're doing during
the next biennium is analyzing
our current methodology of how
we purchase surplus and
purchase surplus and retire
vehicles in the future. Right
now, we don't really have a
good standardized methodology
for our vehicle purchases. And
this pausing of the general
fund contribution would not
impact the current acquisitions
in place. There would there's
ample enough funds in the
current fleet fund to continue
purchasing vehicles. The plan
is to have public works
contract out for a consultant
to present some different
methodologies to the city
manager's office so that we can
adopt a methodology that takes
into account best practices on
fleet acquisition and usage,
including depreciation
surpluses and things like that,
and that would occur over the
next biennium. This would be a
one time pause of the general
fund contribution for fleet
acquisitions. So I'm going to
go into the next slide because
there's there's another slide
that shows some of these
elements. So as we've
previously shared in other
workshops, we are going to go
into the proposition two bank
capacity for related
firefighter salaries and
benefits, and also for capital
projects that would be ongoing.
We are temporarily pausing
general fund transfers to the
fire pension fund for the
biennium. I know it says
ongoing, but it is right now
going to be a temporary pause
with a quarterly review of that
fund that would be presented to
the city manager. So the fire
pension is fully funded at 120%,
and this was presented to the
Fire Pension Board on July 6th.
We are eliminating the catch up
contributions for our Roske
fund, which is used for our
liability self-insurance
purposes, as we are at the 85%
actuarial confidence level from
our recent actuarial report
over previous years, we had to
catch up to get to that level.
We are now at that confidence
level, and so we are going to
eliminate the catch up
contribution. That will be one
time we would we would evaluate
during the biennium because we
do we do a actuarial analysis
during each biennium and see if
are we at that actuarial
confidence level again. And
then it's possible we would not
have to do the catch up
contribution in anticipation of
the next new biennium. But for
this, for the 2728, we would
not do the catch up
contribution for the general
from the general fund to that
fund. And then finally, a
recalculation of the
compensated absences reserve
formula that requires council
action, and that would come to
you in an August 24th workshop
that I will be coming forward
to you on with our financial
policies update and our
recommended proposal on that
compensated absences is a five
year average of actual usage of
our compensated averages of our
compensated absences, which is
our paid time off, is another
way to say it of city employees.
And so right now it's at over
50%. And we will be calculating
it based on a five year average.
That would be our
recommendation. So these
actions highlight the thought
process that many team members
collaborated on. We
collectively reviewed and asked
the why behind some legacy
practices, which is always
helpful to look at, when to see
what an organization is doing
and see if there's
opportunities for improvement.
And this is what any business
or household would do when in a
financial bind, you look at how
you're operating, how you're
spending, and see how you can
make some adjustments. And this
process is ongoing and
continues to this day. The
process is proved to be
successful and is enabled a
possible biennium budget
without issuing massive cuts
across the board and allow the
departments to continue the
work that's been done to date
and see what else is possible.
As City Manager Lannen has
mentioned, this is a reset
budget that gives the city time
to continue the work to meet
the needs of the future and
work on solutions to closing
the structural deficit. So I'm
going to keep going. I'm going
to go into the summary. And so
although what's presented here
is pretty significant, the
projection for 2728 that you've
just seen is a balance. There's
a lot of elements that
contribute to closing that
deficit, and some require
further action. And although
some of those elements are one
time, some are ongoing, it's
not going to be one large
solution that fixes the issue.
It's incrementally based with
analytical focus and intense
team work that will keep
steering the organization. Any
change or alteration to any of
the any of these elements
eliminates the forecast that's
presented today. So we do have
continued challenges. The
economy continues its pressure
on operating expenses
concerning supplies, long lead
times and the uncertain
international impacts that
continue today have a ripple
effect that we can't predict.
So going back to long lead
times, we were recently
informed that the there's a
backorder on steel that's up to
12 months due to the tremendous
pressure of data center
construction that's going on
across the United States. And
so that is requiring us to
rethink how we construct our
capital projects. And so that
was something our General
Services Department shared with
us. I thought that was kind of
interesting. So we've assumed a
status quo budget with no new
initiatives and programs.
Although we know things could
change. You have priorities,
things you want to share. So
anything that is added, we will
do an accommodation. It could
require an adjustment somewhere
else in the budget. It could
require an elimination of
existing programs, a
reprograming, or a changing of
level of services that could be
necessary to better address the
priorities. We're prepared to
do that. And as mentioned
before, our structural deficit
continues. This is a breakdown
of that 105 million over the
next four years. You can see
it's broken out by year, and
it's a delicate balance. Any
change to the elements and then
anything out of our control
that we are monitoring all the
time could change the numbers
in the forecast. I'm almost
done. So one thing I want to
share with you, that it's
important to me to acknowledge
the monumental level of work
that went on behind the scenes.
I want to thank everyone here
on this slide and many others
that I could have missed.
There's been a lot of back and
forth research, vetting, legal
analysis, and many meetings to
provide these elements. This is
a wonderful city team who are
doing everything possible to
provide solutions. I want to
thank everyone here who truly
exemplified our city values of
collaboration and innovation.
So I'm going to go on to our
next steps in the biennium
budget process. So for July,
the City Manager is working
with you on confirming your
priorities through a
prioritization process. The
department submitted their
budgets yesterday before
midnight, and so we haven't had
a chance to look at everything
yet. There is an all staff
meeting tomorrow that our city
manager is having. Additionally,
we have a virtual idea box. We
are opening up to all of our
city employees for one month to
provide any budget saving ideas
they may have. We're interested
to hear from them and opening
the lines of communication.
We're calling it a virtual idea
box. They can submit their
ideas anonymously, and then we
have another budget workshop
with you next week to share
community survey results and
also discuss the
Prioritizations. I will be
returning to you on August 24th
with revised financial policies
and a revised investment policy,
which hasn't been updated since
2012. There will be also be
another opportunity to discuss
the biennium budget at this
time, and also our new Chief
Financial Officer, Katie
Shipley, will be on hand, so
there'll be an opportunity for
her to introduce herself to the
community at the workshop.
Looking forward to that. And
then we will have a workshop on
September 21st before the
budget is published on October
1st. So the September 21st
workshop is the preview of the
city manager's recommended
budget. It's kind of like the
last look before we have to
publish October 1st, which is
required by law. And then we
have two workshops scheduled to
review the operating and
capital budgets on October 12th
and 26th, and then scheduled
for consideration for you on
November 2nd and adoption
scheduled for November 16th. So
although we are in the midst of
summer, we're right in the
middle of budget season. This
is our second of seven
workshops in total. When I
believe in the past, there have
been about 3 or 4 workshops.
We've heard from you that you
want to hear from us more often
on the biennium budget. And so
I'm hoping that this is more
amenable to you to have a more
conversations with you on this
biennium budget. So with that,
I'm going to close and open it
up for any questions or
discussion items. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Miss Brandel.
Councilors. Councilor Perez.
>> Thank you. Lisa, a couple of
questions. Is it possible to
get a dollar amount or
percentage on those key
elements? That was on the first
slides you went through the
line items. Pause here on going
here, is it possible to get an
idea of the amount in
percentage? I don't have the
slide number.
>> Yes I can, they are
distributed over a number of
different funds. That's why I
didn't exactly give. If I gave
you one amount, it could be
distributed over a number of
different funds in addition to
the general fund, street and
fire funds.
>> So yeah, just to get a big
picture of that percentage, I
don't need to know what fund,
but just what are we talking
about?
>> I can do that.
>> Thank you. And we could
share with the rest of the
council and then the no new
initiatives or programs. Is
that decision going to be made
by city manager or a check in
with us at some point?
>> Yeah. I'll let let Lorne
answer.
>> Yeah. So I was going to
address this one a little bit
later, but all of you in your
email inboxes have the first
round of prioritization sheets
from the staff, basically lets
you rank the different
activities that the city is
engaged in to help give us some
feedback on what your
collective number one, number
two, number three projects are.
There will be a second round
for that. And at the workshop
next week, first, you'll hear
the results of the Dem
community survey. I wanted you
to have that information. So
you have that grounding and
community sentiment about taxes,
fees, what the what the
community is feeling right now.
And then we'll go into a
discussion, review what we have
so far on the prioritization.
But at that meeting, I really
want to, for lack of a better
term, mine the Council for the
things that you would like to
see for priorities that we
should be pursuing, that we are
not. We'll give you the
information on the ongoing
projects, the priorities that
we currently have. But there
are things that I know, for
example, that we've talked
about quite a bit, childcare
being one of them, that we
don't currently have a lot of
massive efforts behind. So if
you want to do something like
that and make childcare a
priority, then we can respond
to that. We want to make sure
that these are things that
would be a shared priority of
the full council. So also,
because we're at the point that
the decision packages are in
and we can really start shaping
the budget. We want to have
that information sooner rather
than later. So that will be
coming next week.
>> Okay. And then my last
question, I know that you
looked at the forecast through
2032, but we've got some other
things playing out in the world,
and that's a regional fire
authority discussion, a Metro
Parks District discussion. So
at what point with those two in
mind, would you think about how
that intersect with our
forecast?
>> Yeah. So some of those
pieces I'll use the regional
fire authority as an example.
This budget presupposes I'm not
making a presupposition that
the voters would approve a
regional fire authority during
this biennial budget. If they
did, most likely that would be
something that would happen in
the second year. And then we
would have to take a look at
the transition plan for when it
would actually be created, when
it would actually move off onto
its own dedicated funding,
instead of being part of the
services that the city provides.
So when we say status quo,
those items are included
through this biennial budget as
expected, city services. And we
have not modeled them out. But
essentially, I think none of
them would be expected to show
up before 2028. So if they do,
we'd have the ability to adjust
the budget through the
supplemental process to account
for those.
>> Okay. And then last question,
you mentioned that the fire
pension presentation on July
6th to the Fire Pension Board.
What was the feedback or input?
>> The mayor was also there,
and I they understood and they
were okay with it. They
understood that we were going
to come back and review it
every quarter. And. They didn't
have any negative feedback. So.
All right.
>> Yeah.
>> And Miss Brenda, I'd like to
add a note to that. The board
and the administration set a
limit that if it's at 120% now
if it dropped to 115% that the.
We would take a look at that to
understand why it did and make
a recommendation to the city
manager. So it's fully funded.
And unfortunately, we're losing
firefighters that are in that
category, in that retired
firefighters, in that pension
board. But they accepted it
unanimously.
>> Yeah. And for those not as
familiar with what that is, the
city maintains a pension fund
that is a closed system for
former city employees that are
eligible for it on the fire
side. And there are certain
expenses that we have to pay
for by law and some by choice
out of that, that fund. But
we've reached a point, as the
mayor said, where, you know,
the number of people that are
drawing from the fund over time
tends to dwindle. And because
we've been contributing to it
and because interest earnings
have been on the climb, we're
at a point where it's funded at
120% of expected liabilities.
>> Okay. Thank you. That's all
for me.
>> Councilors. Any other
comments? Questions. None. Oh
yes Councilor Fox. Go ahead.
>> I just had a question about
the reserve the changes to our
reserves on those different
funds. First, just I was
wondering if we could get
information back to kind of
show the historic levels of
those reserve funds and then
what the proposal is so kind of
building on Councilor Perez's
question, just to better
understand the difference
between then and and what's
proposed.
>> Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank
you, sir.
>> And my final question is,
well, more of a statement, but
it is a big concern considering,
you know, the state the city
was in during kind of the
recession time frame. And even
with reserves, there were a lot
of layoffs, a lot of big
changes that had to happen. So
I'm just wondering how we're
insulating ourselves from that.
>> Thank you for that. Thank
you for the question. I don't
know if answer just yet. Miss
Brandel, did you hear?
>> Yeah, that's a great
question. As I'm reviewing the
financial policies and going
through the reserves, we have
different reserves. You have a
revenue stabilization reserve,
you have a designated liability
reserve. You have a compensated
absence reserve. You have an
emergency reserve. So in short,
you have different levels of
reserves of the general fund.
And they are established in the
policy to not go beyond below a
certain level. And so it
creates a cushion, if you will.
And so for example, on the
compensated absence reserve, I
think I have that amount here,
just like a recalculation of
that formula. Would return 3.3
million back to the general
fund. You're holding it in
reserve for 50/50 percent when
in actuality, over the last 5
to 6 years it has not occurred.
So we're taking an average of
those five years at 150%. So
we're presenting a conservative
formula still, but not as
conservative as it has been. So
I will definitely share all of
that with you and can share
those reserves. And those
financial policies will be
presented to you. We have to
present those to you, and we
found some reserves that were
held for a project that doesn't
exist anymore. Since the early
2000 Columbia Arts Center. So
I'll be bringing that forward
to have that redesignated for
the the Arts Hub. So there's a
lot of different reserves that
we have. In short, that I think
adequately insulate the city as
much as possible, as much as we
can be held insulated. Consider
all things considering.
>> Yeah. And if I could just
add a little more context on
that, the, the as Lisa is
saying, that we have a lot of
different reserves. We have not
looked at anything that would
make changes to things that I
would consider critical for
operations like the emergency
reserve, the general fund
reserve. But some of these,
like this one for compensated
absences are are restricted on
what they can be used for. And
when you look across the
industry, for example, the best
practice would not be to put
100% of compensated absences
into an account every single
year, because that would
presuppose that all of your
employees would leave at the
same time. And that does not
that has not is not something
that's going to occur unless
the city of Vancouver decides
to disincorporate. And so we
want to make sure that as we
look at these, that we are
incorporating best practices,
but that also allow us to
utilize our existing cash flow
in other ways. Before we go
back and ask the community,
what would you like us to do?
Or what other financial
resources would we look at? So
I think, you know, the broader
context, we do have our new CFO
that will be joining us, but we
are also bringing on an outside
financial consultant for the
first time to really help us
work through, for example, a
strategic use of bonding. But
they will do be doing a, a more
forensic look at all of our
financial policies and
determining, you know, some of
these date back to the 2000.
Are they still appropriate for
the way that we operate today?
>> Councilor Fox, Mayor Pro Tem
Fox, did you have any other
questions or comments?
>> I don't thank you.
>> Thank you councilors. All
right, Miss Randall, thank you
so very much. We will see you
in a month. All right. Let's
move on to the public safety
sales tax. Lived in Chief Eric
J. C, City Manager. Did you
have something to start this
off?
>> Yeah. So we're bringing this
to the city Council. And it's
really running kind of parallel
to the budget process. But
that's intentional. And I just
wanted to, I guess, in a little
bit of historic context, remind
the council that when we went
to the public last year for
proposition five, our funding
strategy for being able to
increase our police services
was based on three different
tools that we could use, one
being the property tax that the
voters ultimately approved. The
second being a grant program
that we just received notice
that we were eligible for from
the state. And the third being
the sales tax that was
authorized by the same
legislation. So this is a
timing issue for us entirely,
based on when we would like the
city to start receiving the
revenue. But I do feel like
this is something as part of
our proposition five campaign
and and conversations with the
community, we did make people
aware that this is something we
were looking at. So I will turn
it over to the chief and team.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. I think the city
manager pretty much said what I
was going to say.
>> Of course he did.
>> But we're here with with
Deputy Chief Nielsen and our
business intelligence analyst
Jake Elliott, and he has been
pivotal in getting our
applications approved and and
helping us advance towards this
point with the House Bill 2015
sales tax. So, Jake.
>> This is the part where I get
to introduce myself. I'm Jake
Elliott Business Intelligence
Analyst And I also get to say
that City Manager Cleghon took
some of the things I was going
to say. We'll start with a high
level overview here today.
We'll go through a background.
What House Bill 2015 is our
qualification process? The
public safety, sales and use
tax component, and then the
statewide Public Safety Grant
fund. I apologize, Deputy Chief,
did you want to reduce yourself
before we jump in? Okay. Here's
a timeline for you just to
contextualize where we are
today, way back in April 2024,
then City Manager Eric Komes
convened the Police Community
Advisory Committee. Their goal
there was to really assess the
needs of the police department
and how best to fund those
needs, or make recommendations
to the city manager to provide
to City Council. Ultimately,
over a series of 7 or 8
meetings, that police community
advisory team culminated into a
recommendation to issue
proposition four onto the
November 2024 general election
ballot. That was a levy lid
lift that would have funded 80
officers and 36 Non-sworn
professional staff for the
police department. City Council
ultimately endorsed that that
proposition. In October of 24,
it went to the general ballot,
where, unfortunately, it
narrowly failed by about a 4%
margin. If you recall the
general election in 2024, very
lengthy ballot, it was the last
thing on the ballot. So there
were many things contributing
to that, we believe. But
nonetheless, now City Manager
Pluckhahn reconvened that
police community advisory
committee to discuss the
outcomes of proposition four
and navigate a path forward
simultaneously. The Washington
state legislature was also
discussing new revenue tools
through House Bill 2015, which
provided the public safety,
sales tax and this grant fund
that we'll discuss further
later on. With those in mind,
the Police Community Advisory
Committee and the context of
proposition four narrowly
failing recommended a smaller
proposition. Proposition five,
which was successfully passed
in November of 2025. And it
supplies us with funding for 13
officers and about ten
Non-sworn professional staff, a
bit short of the 80 officers
and 36 Non-sworn professional
staff from proposition four.
But it was really. Proposition
five is meant to be a component
of a triad of funding sources
in tandem with House Bill 2015,
which will leverage that sales
tax, which wasn't available to
us when we went through the
proposition four process and
then leveraging the state grant
funds. So that leads us to
where we are today to discuss
House Bill 2015. Again, it was
passed in by the legislature in
2025. Governor Ferguson
promoted this throughout his
campaign and coined it as the
$100 million statewide grant
program it also created. In
addition to the grant program,
it created the one tenth of 1%
local public safety sales and
use tax that can be
semantically adopted via
ordinance. It's intended to
address Washington's public
safety staffing shortage. As we
know, Washington state is the
least on a per capita basis,
the least staffed state among
the 51 states, including the
District of Columbia. For law
enforcement professionals. And
so he was really trying to
focus on how we can rightsize
public safety staffing through
this mechanism. It requires
agencies to meet specific
policy training and reporting
standards before qualifying. I
will say that this is almost
been like a quasi accreditation
process for the police
department, and we'll discuss
that in a little bit. So like
we've already discussed
previously, this provides two
legs of the triad of funding
recommended by the Police
Community Advisory Committee,
the first being proposition
five, which is a property tax
levy lid lift that provided a
$6 million of ongoing revenue
to support about 13 officers
and other associated expenses
with those officers. The grant
funds, the amount of the award
is to be determined. We are
applying for funding to support
16 officers out of the grant
funding to support their salary
and benefits. And then to
sustain those 16 officers. We
intend to present the public
safety, sales and use Tax
ordinance to council for their
consideration. Again, that will
be a penny for every $10 spent
or one tenth of 1% sales tax.
And we anticipate that to
supply about $6 million of
ongoing annual revenue. In
order to leverage either of
those House Bill 2015 revenue
sources, the grant or the sales
tax. Like I alluded to earlier,
we had to go through what I
would call quasi accreditation
process. VPD has successfully
completed this process and has
met Cjcs qualification
requirements. Ktk being the
Criminal Justice Training
Commission who administers the
qualification process. We had
to go through our programs, our
policies to assess how well we
meet the model policies and the
qualification requirements for
things like crisis intervention,
de-escalation, use of force,
integrated arrest tactics, the
Keep Washington Working Act,
which really is founded in how
law enforcement and other
government agencies interact
with immigration and
immigration law. We had to work
through our policies for civil
protection orders and firearms
relinquishments use of force
canine. And then we also have
to abide by data reporting
requirements under the use of
force state reporting
requirements. So now that we've
successfully met that we have
submitted an application for a
public safety grant. Again,
this is administered by the
Criminal Justice Training
Commission. It's intended to
provide funding for newly hired
entry level police officers,
explicitly differentiating from
lateral officers. They want new
police entering in, which will
add to the pool of employees in
the state, as opposed to hiring
laterals from agency to agency.
The state will fund up to 75%
of salary and benefits during
the grant period, which expires
in June 2028. So we're on a
very compressed timeline on
this. The maximum state
contribution per position is
$125,000 per officer per year,
and the City of Vancouver will
provide a 25% match. Our
application is in the current
round of requests, which opened
up in July on July 1st, and we
request limited term funding
for 16 new officers. And again,
we'll sustain those, or we
intend to sustain those with
the sales and use tax. And this
would be the final piece of
that triad, the public safety,
sales and use tax, as I've said
already, one tenth of 1% tax.
That's a penny for every $10
spent. It's $6 million in
annual revenue. It can be
semantically imposed through an
ordinance. So today we're doing
our council workshop with you
to. Share this with you and the
community. We intend to come
back in August or September
with the ordinance for your
consideration and approval. And
then should you approve that,
the tax collection for this
sales and use tax would begin
in January of 2027. It would
sustain those 16 new sworn
positions and some additional
non-sworn positions. With that,
I'm happy to answer any
questions. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
Councilors. Councilor Perez.
>> Hi. Just clarify for me. I
got a little confused on I was
looking at the 13 officers from
prop five and then the
statewide grant fund, 16 new
officers. But then I heard that
the grant was for training. Is
is so is it training of the 13
officers, or is the grant being
requested to hire 16 officers
and train them? So can you just
I got a little confused on that.
>> Yeah, absolutely. It can be
a little bit confusing here. So
proposition five funded 13
officers. That's totally
separate. Those are sustained.
The grant will be hiring in 16
new officers or that's the our
intended goal is to hire in 16
officers. Some of the funding
will go towards training. We
also applied for their fees for
like their Basic Law
Enforcement Academy, some of
the equipment associated with
those officers, like what they
were on their person vehicles,
as well as salary and benefits.
That's limited term funding for
those 16 positions. And so then
the sales tax would help
sustain those beyond that
period of time. Okay. So those
are two separate, but all
components of what the Police
Community Advisory Committee
recommended.
>> All right. And so none of
the none of the grant or the
sales tax is going to training
for the 13 officers.
>> That's correct.
>> Just a. 16 okay. Thank you
for that clarification.
>> Counselor.
>> I had a couple of questions
for with the maximum
contribution from the state
being the 125 plus our match,
does that actually add up to
the full cost? You know,
there's all the benefits and
retirement and matches and
everything else. That's like a
full package of an employee.
Does that equate to that?
>> It's close. Yeah. It's not
going to be quite, quite there.
It'll be just a little bit
under. But since we'll be
collecting revenue beginning in
2027 on the sales tax, should
it be approved by council will
be able to supplement that
additional. So the 16 officers,
any gap between their total
cost and what we're bringing in
from the grant will be able to
cover that with the sales tax.
>> Okay. And then there was a
mention of Non-sworn hires for
that was the sales tax, right?
Not the grant.
>> That's correct.
>> And what would those
Non-sworn employees be doing?
>> Troy Price, Chief of Police
we have several support roles
that still need to be filled in
the agency. As we bring more
people in, that's more people
we need in evidence. There are
several support roles that
happen that people in it.
There's people who take care of
our IT needs. There are people
who take care of. Thank you
training. And so it, it, it
just grows. And it helps us
continue to continue to provide
support for those additional
sworn bodies.
>> Okay. And so, and that would
be so there's 16 officers plus
additional sworn would be what
would be part of the sales tax.
Not sustain it. Yeah.
>> Non-sworn.
>> Non-sworn. Sorry. Okay. And
you know, there's definitely an
interest of ensuring, you know,
our co-response that we are
doing continues to be sustained.
And if anything expanded to
make sure we're meeting the
need. So I just wanted to check
in and see if that was also on
the list.
>> So we're always.
>> Looking to enhance that. It
just helps us meet the needs of
the community. As more people
move here, we understand that
there's going to be even
greater need in that area as
well.
>> Okay. Yeah, I definitely
have an interest in that. And I
know the community does as well.
And as we continue to have
these crises, it's really
important that we have that
Co-response model and that it's,
you know, adequate at the level
that we need and also
predicting the future too. So a
lot of this is predicting the
future on what our needs are. I
also wanted to what did this
note mean? I wrote carve outs
and I don't know why. So I
might come back to me. Thank
you.
>> Counselor Hanson.
>> Thank you. Mayor. Taking a
look here with the 16 and 16.
What is your attrition through
retirements each year? I mean
how is this going to enhance
you see where I'm going here.
>> Yes I do. So this this is
over and above where we
currently are staffed. Right
now. We are trying to keep pace
with retirements. And I think
we actually had reached our
level where we brought an
additional three people on
under the prop five funding.
And then the second we did that,
then we had someone else retire.
And so we gained three, you
know, gained three, lose one.
So we'll kind of be in that
mode. We are stepping up our
recruitment efforts through our,
our recruitment and backgrounds
department. And so we're we're
going to we, I'll be honest, we
want to steal the best lateral
officers that we can under the
prop five money. And we want to
entice people to enter this
field who may have never even
considered it before under the
sales tax money, if that's
approved. So we are we we are
fully understanding that we
need to ramp our efforts up.
And we're positioned to do that
right now.
>> Thank you.
>> Chief, it was important that
you made a comment here. Prop
five we can use for laterals.
Correct. But sales tax we can
only use for brand new officers.
>> So not exactly. The grant
can only be used for entry
level brand new officers. Prop
five is flexible. And if I can
add to what the chief just said
as a component of the grant, in
addition to our recruiting
efforts that are ongoing now,
we also ask for additional
revenue to be able to
supplement some of the staffing
in our backgrounds and hiring
unit as well, to expedite that
hiring process as much as we
can.
>> Okay. Good point. Thank you.
Entry level on the grant. Okay.
Yes, counselor Stover, go ahead.
>> Thank you, mayor, and thank
you all for being here. And
it's great to be making
progress. At one point. And is
this still true that the sales
tax, us doing the sales tax was
a requirement of the grants?
>> It is not. They're mutually
exclusive. The qualification
for both is the same. And so I
think that's where it got
confused because initially it
was advertised as you must
qualify for the sales tax to be
eligible for the grant. But now
as long as you qualify either
or both.
>> Okay, great. Thank you. And
now for the elephant. What
would this bring sales tax in
the city to?
>> Honestly, I'm not prepared
to answer that question. I
would actually have to look to
the city and and ask, counselor.
>> I will have to look because
I know what ours adds. But the
county has made some changes
recently.
>> I think the number is 8.8.
But. I just we I'm not saying I
don't support this, but it's
still at the same time,
something we need to keep in
mind that all these great
things keep adding up. So thank
you.
>> While he's looking that up,
counselor Harless. Go ahead.
>> I remember what my note was
for now, and it was actually
related to that with, you know,
having the property tax. Just
all these things are adding up
right now. And being in an
affordability crisis right now.
I was curious if there were
carveouts for like specific, I
know sometimes we can and
sometimes we can't for like
certain. Products or something
like essentials. I assume the
answer is no, but I wanted to
ask.
>> I don't think the
legislation was written
flexibly enough for carve outs
like that. I think it's going
to be a universal one tenth of
1%.
>> Okay.
>> Councilor Stober, with the
county having adopted the their
version of this sales tax rate,
we are at 0.089 right now.
>> So City Manager adding the
point one would bring us up to.
>> 0.09.
>> Yeah.
>> Yes. Councilor Soelberg go
ahead.
>> To Councilmember Harless
last point. Carve outs. I'm
saying this because I've been
part of conversations at
Association of Washington
Cities. So that's why I have
knowledge, the quote unquote
millionaire's tax provided
carve outs for things. If that
gets overturned or thrown up by
the courts, those carve outs, I
believe, are tied and would go
away. So yeah.
>> Okay. Any other questions of
staff?
>> Mayor, if I could, I think
just to help with the context
on some of this discussion, I
think the question might come
up about what what changed
between proposition four and
proposition five. And if you
think back to proposition four,
JC has already talked about
some of the conditions that
changed as far as HB 2442 being
passed in the new state grant
program being created. But with
the second one, we really
focused on how many people
could we accommodate within our
existing facilities because
proposition five was also
accompanied by the knowledge
that at some point, the city
was going to have to add
another building and that there
would be an excess levy bond
vote that would be put in front
of the public, and then that
there would be, in future years,
the likelihood of a sales tax
vote being put out there to
both pay for the cost of
operating that facility, but
the ongoing costs of those
officers. So it was a very long
seven, eight year process with
multiple asks that would have
needed to be put in front of
the public. And with the second
one, we really worked to
simplify it, work within our
existing facilities. Part of
the driver on the existing
facilities was that annexation
discussions actually started to
happen as the county and the
city moved through our
respective comprehensive
planning processes and, and
looking at the future of the
area that was not part of the
original discussions. And as
those types of things take
place, if annexation starts to
occur, that changes our needs.
It changes the possibility of
facilities, locations, and
trying to do something with
locating a facility now really
would have seemed premature. So
those conditions changed as
well.
>> Thank you.
>> Chief JC Erika, thank you so
very much.
>> Thank you, thank you.
>> That concludes our workshops
and it puts us into a break. We
will be back at 630 for our
regular council meeting. Thank
you.