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Committee adopts resolution recommending 2024 actual expenses as baseline for 2026 budget
Summary
The committee approved a resolution recommending that elected offices and departments use 2024 actual expenses as a baseline for 2026 budget submissions, with an amendment allowing offices to submit individual or collective revised budgets; staff and members discussed timelines, exhibit A, and revenue shortfalls.
The King County Finance and Budget Committee on July 30 approved a resolution recommending that elected offices and county departments use 2024 actual expenses as the baseline when preparing fiscal year 2026 budget submissions. The committee approved amended language that explicitly permits offices and departments to revise budgets either individually or collectively to meet the baseline numbers in the resolution—s attachment (Exhibit A).
Committee members and staff framed the measure as a procedural step to create a practical starting point amid a projected revenue shortfall. Committee members said the revenue the county currently regards as secure is about $112,000,000; the committee has also authorized a separate CPI revenue recommendation that staff estimate could add about $2,000,000. "Our revenues that we know of right now, we anticipate to be about 112,000,000," a committee member said during discussion. Committee members noted the proposed 2026 figures that departments had submitted are suggestions and not yet approved.
Discussion focused on procedure and fairness. Members asked to see Exhibit A (the 2024 actual expense breakdown) during the meeting; staff and counsel agreed to circulate the exhibit and to add explicit language so departments may submit either individual revised budgets that match each line item in Exhibit A or a collective submission that achieves the same total. Assistant state's attorney Franks drafted the amendment language and the committee adopted it. "[T]his amendment ... allows the individual numbers to be a basis point. It allows the collective budget for the departments to remain intact," Franks said.
Members raised implementation questions: how smaller departments would absorb cuts, whether approved salary increases and collective bargaining adjustments from 2024 are captured in the baseline, and how the budget revision process will proceed through standing committees. Staff and several members said departments will present revised budgets to their respective standing committees in August, with finance-level reconciliation expected in September; final budget decisions remain on the fall calendar.
The committee approved the resolution as amended; staff were directed to distribute the revised resolution and Exhibit A to all board members, department heads and elected officials and to return with any clarifications requested by committees.
