Consultants present long-range financial model; city staff to begin department scenario planning

Morgan Shook, director and partner at Echo Northwest, told the Tumwater City Budget and Finance Committee on March 28 that her firm is about "85% done building the tool," a multi-fund financial model the city will use for long-range planning.

The model, Shook said, represents spending from the personnel level up through department, fund and citywide relationships. "Once we have kind of this representation of sort of individuals' levels of spending in the departments, in the funds, is we have to then relate the funds to each other," she said, describing how the tool ties general fund commitments to enterprise and restricted funds. The consultants emphasized the tool is intended to inform multi-year choices rather than produce a detailed next-year operating budget.

Why it matters: The model is intended to let staff and council test scenarios such as adding positions, expanding services, or funding large capital projects while seeing how those choices change the city's fiscal trajectory over five to 10 years. Shook said the next phase of the project will include department-level strategic inputs and community priorities that will be layered into scenario testing.

Shook and Echo Northwest described the project process as three inputs: the baseline (current commitments in the 2025 budget); department strategic plans that identify new FTEs, non-labor needs and capital priorities; and the council's strategic planning process and community survey results. "We want this to sync up with the council's strategic planning process," Lisa (city staff) added, referencing the April 8 update the administration plans to bring to council.

Consultants gave examples of choices the model can test: adding service levels paired with targeted revenue options (for example a parks levy or a public safety sales tax), recapitalizing infrastructure with bond measures, or stress-testing the city under slower revenue growth. "We could run a scenario. What if we added these 10 positions? Does that make future council budget decisions easier or harder to balance the budget?" Shook said.

Council members and staff asked operational questions about how the model handles timing and alerts. A council member asked whether the tool can provide notifications about when a general fund-funded position would create a future budget shortfall; Shook responded that the tool is designed to "take a look at those long term things" and run trajectory scenarios, though it is not a line-by-line next-year budget tool.

Next steps and timeline: Echo Northwest said it is finishing fine-tuning the model with Troy and finance staff, then will move into department engagement beginning in April. The consultants did not request any approvals at the March 28 meeting and asked only for feedback and participation from department leaders and the council's strategic planning process.

The presentation included Zoe Fairley as a named member of the consultant team but she did not speak during the committee update.

The committee did not take formal action on the Echo Northwest update; staff and consultants will continue to coordinate department workshops and follow-up presentations to the committee and council.