By a vote of 6-1, the Mountlake Terrace City Council passed the city’s 2025-2026 biennial budget Nov. 21.

Deputy City Manager Carolyn Hope and Finance Director Sirke Salminen delivered the final budget presentation. No one from the public signed up to speak or submit written commentary as part of the public hearing prior to the council vote.

Hope said that the police fleet budget has increased by $750,000. This is due to keeping some vehicles as backup during patrol car maintenance and pit maneuver training. She also said the police department’s insurance has increased by $193,000 annually.

Municipal courts are also seeing cost increases, Hope said. Defense professional services are going up by $800,000, court fees by $300,000 and jail fees by about $590,000. Further, translation services and inmate medical charges will increase by $20,000-$25,000.

Hope said court costs represent about a 40% increase since 2023.

During the discussion, Councilmember Laura Sonmore said the budget was imbalanced and that the council was not following its financial policies to meet city’sthe 5% reserve requirement. Further, Sonmore said that the city can’t use the city’s undesignated general fund balance to finance recurring operating expenses, describing it as having to “dip into savings.”

“This means annual general funds revenues will equal annual revenue regular operating expenses, and I can show you in the budget where we’re $1.8 million short,” Sonmore said.

Sonmore referred to section 2, pages 2-14 of the biennial budget summary, under “Operating Revenues over (under) Operating Expenditures.”

“The budget is not balanced from an operating standpoint; we are spending more operating expenditures than we are collecting and operating revenues,” Sonmore said.

City Manager Jeff Niten assured Sonmore that the budget was balanced, as explained in the budget summary’s introduction.

The budget was passed with six councilmembers voting for it and Sonmore voting against.

In other business, the council reviewed the city’s priorities in the state Legislature with state lobbyist Shelly Helder of Gordon Thomas Honeywell.

The city has two primary prioritiesin the upcoming legislative session. The first is replacing the Mountlake Terrace Library roof and HVAC system, both of which have exceeded their life cycles. The roof frequently leaks and needs repairs during the winter, and parts for the HVAC system can only be found on second-hand websites, such as eBay.

The estimated cost of replacing the library roof is $2 million. The city is seeking $800,000 in grants from the state capital budget.

The other main priority is obtaining funding for transit-oriented development, which will go toward the city’s Main Street Revitalization Project and will help facilitate increased population density.

Phase 1 of the Main Street project started in 2013 and was completed in 2020. Phase 2 began in 2021 but was delayed due to rising costs and funding challenges.

Phase 2 will reconstruct 56th Avenue West between 234th Street Southwest and 232nd Street Southwest. However, there is a $21 million funding gap to complete it.

Phase 3– in concept development and preliminary engineering – involves constructing a new 57th Avenue West between 236th and 232nd Streets West. When completed, 57th Avenue West would be a pedestrian-oriented retail street in the core of the Town Center.

Additional legislative priorities for the city are:

– Behavioral health funding. The goal is to transition city’s embedded social worker from part time to full time.

– Facility maintenance and compliance with Clean Building Standards. This would support programs and policies for maintenance and energy upgrades for the city’s six facilities.

– Infrastructure funding to accommodate expected increased densities in the city.

– Relief from insurance costs. The city’s insurance premiums have more than doubled in the last three years, from roughly $530,000 in 2021 to $1.2 million in 2024.

– Funding and policies that increase the complete spectrum of housing supply, from emergency shelters to market-rate housing.

– Parks funding: The city requests $1.32 million for Veterans Memorial Park Revitalization, $500,000 for Veterans Memorial Park Revitalization and $326,500 for Evergreen Playfield #4 lighting.

– Public defense: The city supports the state fully funding public defense costs, especially considering potential changes to caseload standards.

The city council also reviewed the federal legislative agenda with federal lobbyist Jake Johnston of the Johnston group. Similiar to state legislative priorities, the city will be seeking infrastructure funding partnerships to develop the downtown core and complete related projects.

However, Johnston said in materials provided to the council that “Congress and the incoming Trump Administration have signaled that federal grant programs and appropriations funding may be significantly less in 2025 and beyond. Specifically, the Trump Administration has pledged to eliminate or significantly reduce funding for funding opportunities created by the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. Congressional appropriations bills are expected to continue to fund opportunities to direct spending to projects in their communities, but the specific accounts and eligibility for projects are not yet known.”

Johnston said the group will continue to prioritize the city’s identified infrastructure priorities and defend anticipated cuts to federal funding for programs that serve the community.

In addition, the city will resubmit its application for the RAISE grant to help fund the Main Street Phase 2 project and seek congressional appropriations funding for renovations for the Mountlake Terrace Library and the Lake Ballinger Community Center.

The Thursday, Nov. 28 council meeting is canceled in observance of Thanksgiving.

The next council meeting will start at 7 p.m., Dec. 5, at Mountlake Terrace City Hall, 23204 58th Ave. W., Mountlake Terrace. To attend the meeting online, visit zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID 810 1113 9518; no passcode is needed.

To make a public comment remotely, complete the registration form within 24 hours of the meeting’s start here.

To listen via telephone, call 1-253-215-8782 and enter the same meeting ID.

You also can view live-streamed meetings and past video recordings at www.youtube.com/cityofmlt.

The agenda can be viewed here.

— Story by Rick Sinnett