Camas Council OKs 2023-24 budget

Following months of back-and-forth conversations about the city’s most pressing priorities and ways to fund them — including the passage of a new 2% utility tax on Camas’ water, sewer, garbage and wastewater utilities — the Camas City Council has unanimously approved Mayor Steve Hogan’s proposed $250,397,285 biennial budget for 2023-24.

The 2023-24 budget, said Camas Finance Director Cathy Huber Nickerson in her staff report to the city council on Monday, Dec. 5, “provides benefits for the whole city, from residents to businesses, early childhood learning to accessibility needs, physical safety to cybersecurity, planning for the city’s growth to rehabilitating current assets.”

In prior budget cycles, Huber Nickerson said, the city’s biennial budget tended to be centered around themes from the city council’s annual planning conference and various mayors’ priorities.

“The 2023-24 budget cycle attempted a more collaborative process,” and included not only more input from the city’s managers regarding their departments’ most urgent needs, but also more feedback from the city council and the community, according to Huber Nickerson.

“Council had multiple opportunities in workshops, retreats, public hearings, documents, public engagement reports and council meetings to consider the proposed budget,” Huber Nickerson stated in her staff report. “(And the) community had a variety of ways to provide input, including (at a) Camas Days booth, (online through) Balancing Act and Engage Camas, public hearings, citizen advisory boards and farmer’s market booths.”

The finance director said the final 2023-24 budget includes:

• “44 operating decision packages totaling $10.7 million, which add $8.5 million in staffing and $2.2 million in equipment, maintenance and services;

• 319 total full-time hires, including the 35 new positions added to bolster staffing levels;

• 11 capital parks projects totaling $9.35 million, including the first two phases of Crown Park improvements;

• Five capital roadway projects totaling $9.3 million, including the third phase of the Northwest 38th Avenue improvements; and

• $24.5 million in major building maintenance, including two replacement fire stations, to address critical failing infrastructure.”

The budget includes the use of around $6 million from the federal $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021, and will use nearly $31.5 million from the city’s various fund balances, including $6.1 million from its general fund balance, to help cover the gap between the budget’s $250,397,285 in appropriations and its projected $218,90,699 in revenues during the 2023-24 biennium.

After City Council members Don Chaney, Tim Hein, Leslie Lewallen and John Nohr in November shot down the annual 1% increase to the city’s property tax levy that finances Camas’ general fund services, city officials opted to “bank” the 1% increase — which would have cost the average Camas homeowner an additional $1.25 a month — for possible use at a later date.

Not taking the 1% property tax levy increase, Huber Nickerson pointed out during the Council’s Dec. 5 meeting, will result in general fund revenue losses of $143,097 in 2023, and $151,503 in 2024.

To offset those revenue reductions, city officials said they will hold off for six months on hiring for several staffing positions — including two police sergeants, a records specialist, a volunteer coordinator, two engineering managers, a system administrator for the city’s internet technology (IT) department, a part-time library associate, a recreation specialist and project manager for the city’s parks and recreation department and two street maintenance workers.

Councilmember Marilyn Boerke, who has expressed concern about the city’s limited staffing levels and the strain that puts on employees — forcing firefighters to work mandatory overtime and causing many staff members to forego vacations because they are overwhelmed by growing workloads — asked Huber Nickerson if there was cause to believe the city might have to delay the new hires more than six months.

The finance director said the revenues included in the biennial budget are estimates, so if there is a recession or other forces that might reduce the city’s revenues during the first quarter of 2023, city officials could have to decide if they are comfortable waiting six months or if they want to delay the new hires even longer.

Some Council members, including Chaney and Hein, said they were concerned the budget includes funding for eight of 12 planned firefighter hires — a decision that will allow the Camas-Washougal Fire Department to increase its fire engine staffing from two to three firefighters — despite the inability of Camas’ partner, the city of Washougal, to pay its roughly 40% share of the fire department’s staffing costs.

“I appreciate their funding priorities,” Hein said of Washougal city officials, “but we have an interlocal agreement, and if we’re paying for all of these, I have an issue with that.”

The city’s interlocal fire department agreement with Washougal is set to expire in 2023. Under the agreement, the city of Camas is the agency charged with making financing decisions for the joint fire department, and with paying approximately 60% of the total costs. The city of Washougal’s more limited revenue sources have caused the smaller city to struggle to pay for the fire department’s growing needs, even though Washougal tends to have a higher percentage of emergency calls requiring the Camas-Washougal Fire Department’s assistance.

On Dec. 5, Camas Councilmember Bonnie Carter, one of the city’s three members of the fire department’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee (JPAC), said city leaders from Camas and Washougal are trying to find a solution that works for everyone.

“JPAC is working to amend the (interlocal agreement) with an emphasis on funding,” Carter said, adding the group has a deadline of three months to hash out an agreement “that works toward alignment and agreements so we can better prepare our plans to go forward.”

The three-month deadline — reinforced by Camas Mayor Steve Hogan, who said his goal is to come to an agreement with Washougal regarding the fire department funding by the spring of 2023 — helped ease Council members’ fears.

“Two or three weeks ago, I was simply going to vote ‘no’ on the budget,” Chaney said. “I believe I can still support (the new firefighter hires) being on the agenda if we can somehow get a commitment from the mayor to hold off on doing any hiring until we have enough time and effort to engage our neighbors (in Washougal) to find a creative solution, so we know they are participating in this funding that benefits the whole (joint fire service area).”

Hogan said he promised to get an updated agreement with Washougal within the first 90 days of 2023, and report back to the Council.

“That gives me comfort approving this at this time,” Chaney said.

Chaney, along with the rest of his peers on the Camas City Council, later voted to approve the mayor’s proposed 2023-24 budget.