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Fire chief Adrian Shepherd and Public Works Director Aaron Burt outline 2027–28 budget priorities; council probes staffing, PFAS and signal tech
Summary
Fire and public works leaders presented the city’s proposed 2027–28 baseline budgets — Fire outlined $92.1M and new emergency‑management staffing while Public Works highlighted PFAS monitoring, septic‑to‑sewer planning and adaptive‑signal failures — prompting council questions about vacancies, apparatus replacement and funding sources.
Fire Chief Adrian Shepherd and Redmond Public Works Director Aaron Burt used the City Council’s April 28 study session to present department overviews that will feed into the city’s 2027–28 baseline budget.
Chief Shepherd said the Redmond Fire Department’s proposed baseline budget is $92,100,000 and covers 168.5 full‑time equivalent positions. He described a new emergency preparedness and recovery budget offer that formalizes emergency management as a standalone function with two FTEs and $977,870 in the proposal. Shepherd also highlighted operational metrics: the department responded to more than 13,700 calls (including about 9,500 EMS responses), reported preliminary cardiac‑arrest survival rates in the low‑50s for recent years and set an internal target of 60 percent.
“Every dollar in this budget supports our commitment to the residents of Redmond and Fire District 34,” Chief Shepherd said, describing staffing, training and capital constraints. He noted capital pressures (apparatus costs and deferred replacements) and identified fire station 11 as a top infrastructure priority.
Council members asked specific budget questions. Council Member Kritzker pressed for clarity on how emergency management will be tracked in the new budget and whether measurable targets will follow; Chief Shepherd said the change makes emergency management visible as a separate budget offer with its own performance measures. Council Member Parsi asked whether the department has quantified the budgetary impact of vacancies; Shepherd said his team has quantified those impacts but did not have the figures at the table.
Public Works Director Aaron Burt presented the department’s baseline staffing and key drivers. Public Works expects about 143.6 employees in the coming biennium and is forecasting a roughly 12 percent increase in the drinking‑water program to cover additional PFAS monitoring and staffing to meet American Water Works Association standards, and about a 16 percent increase in wastewater management driven by pass‑through county costs and lift‑station work.
“We’re beginning to use [the number of parcels on septic] as an indicator because of how important it is for us to move homeowners off septic into our sewer system,” Burt said, describing policy proposals on septic‑to‑sewer conversions staff will bring to council in coming months.
Burt also told council the city has paused expansion of its adaptive traffic‑signal program after detecting malfunctions that at times put signals into flash and reduced traffic throughput downtown. He said the city has put the contractor on notice and is working with the vendor and software company to remedy failures before proceeding with further deployment to Overlake.
On funding, Burt said a dedicated pavement‑conditioning crew would be funded from the transportation‑benefit district (the 0.1 percentage‑point sales‑tax increment council previously approved), and that fleet and apparatus timing often reflects long delivery schedules: “the timeline for purchase to receipt of apparatus… can be up to five years,” Burt said.
What happens next: staff will continue department‑level briefings and bring remaining departmental overviews at the May 12 study session (planning and police). Budget deliberations and any enhancement requests will be part of the council’s upcoming budget calendar and the packet materials for future meetings.
