Tacoma finance staff: 2024 general fund up about $20M, driven by one-time transfers; sales tax remains weak

Interim budget officer Reid Benyon told the City of Tacoma's Government Reports and Finance Committee on April 15 that the city's 2024 general fund finished about $20 million above budget, but that most of that gain came from one-time sources rather than stronger recurring local revenues.

Benyon said the single largest contributor to the positive variance was a miscellany of one-time items, including transfers from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fund that reflected project savings and delayed expenses. From 2021 through 2024, Benyon said the city transferred a total of $44,000,000 from ARPA to the general fund. He also cited $3,400,000 returned from the closed Union Station Fund, roughly $2,000,000 from sale of Foss Waterway sites 9 and 10, and about $2,700,000 in additional interest earnings.

The takeaway, Benyon said, is that 2024's headline growth overstates the underlying local trend: remove the one-time miscellaneous revenues and growth in the general fund would have been…