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Liberty Lake reports stronger-than-expected 2025 revenues; sales tax tops budget
Summary
City finance staff told the council that Liberty Lake's 2025 revenues outperformed budget in key areas: sales and use tax rose above projections, property tax levy matched expectations, and the general fund ended the year with an above-target balance despite some departmental cost overruns.
Liberty Lake's finance director reported on Wednesday that the city closed 2025 with stronger revenues than projected in several major categories, led by sales and use tax.
"We budgeted 3.16. Our actual levy was 3.166," Finance staffer Kyle told the council, summarizing the property-tax picture. He said the city reported general fund revenue of $2.655 million and that sales and use tax receipts exceeded the 2025 budget: the city budgeted $6.62 million and received about $6.99 million.
The presentation traced how those revenues flow through municipal accounts. Kyle noted a prior ordinance that dedicated 23.8% of the property-tax fund to the library (a policy that remains visible in historic accounting even though the ordinance is no longer in place), and he described the distribution of sales tax: "6.5% of that goes to the state, 1.6% goes to the county," he said, with the city's general fund receiving roughly 0.8% of the collected rate.
On the expenditure side, staff said total general-fund spending equaled about 82% of the 2025 budget, while public-safety costs came in above plan at 104% largely because of timing differences, fleet purchases and benefit elections. Kyle told the council some street and capital projects were deferred because of market timing and grant opportunities, which helped keep overall spending lower than expected.
Staff framed several one-time items and accounting timing issues as drivers of specific departmental variances. They also noted robust permitting revenue in 2025 tied to development activity and said plan-review fees are intended to be a 100% cost-recovery service for the community-development department.
Council members asked for follow-up on potential county-level changes to criminal-justice-related sales tax disbursements and were reminded of pending legislative items that could affect future shared revenues. Kyle said the team will publish the slide materials and provide more detailed breakdowns on the city website for residents who want a line-by-line accounting.
The council took no formal action on the report; staff recommended integrating the financial takeaways into budget planning for 2026.
