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Tumwater staff offer baseline financial tool to help council run budget scenarios as revenue outlook softens
Summary
City staff described a baseline financial assessment tool that lets councilmembers model budget scenarios (staff growth, reductions, economic assumptions). Councilmembers asked for individual access and walkthroughs; staff said Morgan Shook and team will set up meetings to train members and share a dashboard.
City staff presented a baseline financial assessment tool at the Oct. 28 work session and invited councilmembers to use it to run revenue and expenditure scenarios ahead of the 2026 supplemental session.
The tool is intended to model different projections ("What happens if you assume a medium economy, what happens if you assume staff growth, what happens if you assume staff reductions," staff said) and allow members to test the impacts of program changes, staffing choices and revenue variations.
Councilmember Lietta Dalhoff asked to be granted access so she could experiment with scenarios before an individual walkthrough. "I learn by doing it," Dalhoff said. Staff responded the tool's inputs were being finalized by department directors and that staff would schedule individual meetings with councilmembers to walk through the tool and provide access.
Staff said the plan is to create an accessible dashboard for councilmembers who do not want full tool access, but to offer detailed one-on-one sessions with Morgan Shook and finance staff for members who want to run scenarios themselves. Staff cautioned they could not promise an exact calendar date for rollout but will follow up with scheduling information.
Next steps: finance staff to finalize inputs, provide access to councilmembers who request it, and run individual walkthroughs; the tool will inform budget deliberations and scenario planning for potential operating and capital pressures in the coming biennium.
