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City to consider engaging consultant for long-range fiscal plan amid council debate over cost and process
Summary
Staff proposed hiring Baker Tilly to lead a long-range financial sustainability task force and plan (contract proposed at $99,500). Council discussion reflected support for a structured public-engagement process and pushback from some members who urged fuller in-house analysis or stronger fiscal discipline before hiring consultants.
City staff told council a competitive process produced seven proposals to prepare a long-range financial sustainability plan and task force; staff recommended Baker Tilly for the work and requested council authorization of a $99,500 contract in the 2025–26 budget.
City Manager Jeff Knighton explained the consultant’s role: update multi-year revenue and expenditure projections, identify potential expenditure reductions and revenue options, conduct public engagement and present a set of recommendations to the council and community. The consultant would work with a citizen task force and city staff to evaluate policy options to close projected structural gaps over a multi-year horizon.
Several council members supported the engagement work as a way to bring the public into tradeoff decisions and to provide independent expertise. Councilmember Murray argued staff capacity is limited for the kind of broad community process and that an outside consultant can be a cost-effective way to run public engagement and modeling.
Other council members objected to the expenditure given the city’s fiscal stress. One councilmember said the city already knows it has budget shortfalls and questioned the value of spending roughly $100,000 “to have somebody tell us we have a problem.” Staff replied that the intent is to structure an exhaustive public, technical and policy process to develop durable solutions and that other jurisdictions use similar consulting support for this kind of complex public engagement and financial modeling.
Council briefly extended the meeting to finish the discussion and agreed to place the Baker Tilly contract on the next agenda as a separate item for formal action after further council deliberation.
Ending
Staff will provide the Baker Tilly contract for council action at the next meeting with supporting materials on scope, selected-team resumes and a description of task-force composition and public-engagement deliverables.
