Sammamish council directs staff to pursue 6% utility tax, to research park district as part of fiscal plan

Sammamish City Council members at a Feb. 8 retreat agreed to direct staff to draft an ordinance to implement a utility tax across city utility providers and asked staff to research formation of a Metropolitan Park District as a longer‑term funding option to address a structural shortfall in the city’s general fund.

“The thing that's most important for us to accomplish today is that we need to have a fundamental and concrete understanding that we have structural imbalance with our budget,” Mayor Karen Howe said at the start of the retreat. City staff and the council’s volunteer Fiscal Sustainability Task Force have concluded the city’s ongoing revenues do not cover ongoing expenses and that the gap must be addressed by a mix of spending reductions and new revenue.

Why it matters: the city has drawn down reserves to cover the deficit and staff projections show the general fund would be in distress if no new revenue is added. At the retreat staff presented recent actions and options: the city has implemented roughly $8.9 million in general‑fund reductions for the budget biennium and staff said a 6% utility tax applied across utilities is the most reliable near‑term revenue option to buy time for a voter‑approved measure.

Task force, consultant and recommendations

Mike Sugg, Supervising Management Analyst in the City Manager’s Office, told the council a consultant and a 10‑member community task force validated the fiscal imbalance and proposed a three‑phase approach: (1) city‑led expenditure reductions (already taken), (2) a councilmanic utility tax, and (3) a voter‑approved funding measure such as a Metropolitan Park District (MPD). Sugg said the task force estimated a 6% tax on utilities could generate on the order of the task force’s modeling (roughly an $11 million annual estimate in staff briefings), but cautioned that is an estimate and actual revenues will be known only after the tax is collected.

“Starting with our current 2025 budget, we are upside down,” Sugg said. Finance staff warned the general‑fund drawdown will continue without a revenue change: staff showed a scenario in which the city’s available fund balance would fall below reserves in the late 2020s if no new revenue is implemented.

Council direction on utility tax, schedule…