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Finance chair corrects FTE table in budget materials, pledges fixes to reporting
Summary
Finance Chair Tom Peak said an internal FTE (full-time-equivalent) table in the budget packet contained errors that overstated positions; he provided corrected totals, apologized, and said procedures will change to avoid similar mistakes.
Finance Chair Tom Peak told the City Council on June 3 that a supplementary table included with the budget materials incorrectly reported FTE counts for several departments, producing misleading totals that circulated publicly.
Peak said the mistake arose after a centralization of FTE compilation and that the error principally reflected seasonal and part-time hires (for example, pool lifeguards) being miscounted as full-time equivalents. He provided corrected totals to the council (FY23: ~396 FTEs; FY24: ~410; FY25: ~421; FY26: ~427) and projections showing that post-override staffing would be roughly 415 FTEs and without an override would be about 388 FTEs.
The chair apologized for the oversight, said he will work with staff to improve review processes for supplementary budget materials and asked colleagues and the public to rely on corrected tables that will be posted shortly. He emphasized that department payroll and budget calculations were completed separately and that the misreported table did not alter the city’s line-item payroll numbers but did create confusion in public conversation related to the budget and proposed override.
The council scheduled followup finance meetings and technical reviews to finalize budget amendments, with the auditor to recalculate revenues as required by statute before final tax-rate recapitulation later in the year.
