City staff present first 2025–26 budget amendment; seeks carry-forwards, grants and limited-term positions

At the May 12 Auburn City Council study session, Director Thomas presented Ordinance 6,975, the city’s first budget amendment for the 2025–26 biennial budget. The amendment package, described to council as largely technical and carry-forward in nature, includes a beginning fund-balance true-up, carry-forward of unspent 2024 budget authority, new grants with offsetting revenue, and several limited‑term program requests.

City staff told council the general fund beginning fund-balance true-up is a $22,000,000 positive adjustment derived from stronger-than-expected revenue and underspends in 2024. To cover contracts and obligations carried into 2025, staff proposed roughly $4,600,000 in carry-forward authority for 19 items; staff said about $3,500,000 of that is unspent operating ARPA funding and roughly $718,000 relates to other grants that require spending authority to be carried forward.

Staff also proposed new programs funded by offsetting revenue totaling roughly $580,000 (net‑neutral budget impact) and about $1.0 million of largely one‑time or limited‑term items. The presentation named several specific items: a COPS grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that will partially fund officer positions (staff said the award covers roughly 20% of an officer’s cost and lasts three years), carry-forward for ARPA-funded human services grants, and a request to convert an ARPA-funded intern peer-support role into a continuing limited-term peer specialist paid from opioid settlement funds (staff said the city has collected approximately $450,000 in opioid-settlement dollars available for such uses).

The amendment packet also covers multiple funds beyond the general fund: staff described about $80.5 million in carry‑forward requests across other governmental, capital project, proprietary and internal service funds, with roughly $5.8 million in offsetting carry-forward revenues and approximately $4.0 million in new grant-funded programs for those funds. Staff highlighted capital items including the city parking-lot property purchase funded from Sound Transit proceeds, carry-forward of an ERP implementation budget, adjustments tied to a WSDOT grant for street work, and reallocation of mitigation funds to address higher-priority park plaza and demolition projects.

Other items called out in the presentation included: LTAC (lodging tax) grant increases funded from an existing LTAC fund balance (staff said the LTAC fund balance is about $470,000 and the board requested increasing 2025 granting authority by $27,000), a request to rebuild or add bays at the M&O facility to support an expanded take‑home vehicle program (staff said bids exceeded the expected grant amount and staff proposed using fund balance pending final grant confirmation), and an undercover vehicle replacement to be paid from forfeiture funds (staff said trade‑in value was about $15,000 and forfeiture funds must be used for drug‑enforcement related purposes).

Council members asked clarifying questions about the emergency housing voucher funds and whether those include clean‑and‑sober housing vouchers; staff replied they are being used for licensed clean‑and‑sober housing programs and that opioid-settlement funds have also been used to support such housing. A council member asked whether reallocated capital dollars are later returned to original accounts; staff explained the amendment reduces budget authority in one project and increases it in another, so the net is a reallocation recorded in the amendment exhibits.

The presentation was informational; the record shows staff presented the ordinance and answered council questions during the study session but no motion or vote on Ordinance 6,975 occurred at that meeting.