We’d like your feedback on the upcoming 2023/24 Biennial Budget

Posted on by Scott Kirby

Take a quick survey!

Take a quick survey to give us your top service priorities and whether you think City services should be reduced or new revenues raised to deal with the projected budget shortfall.

 

Mayor Ekberg and the City Council want community feedback on the City’s upcoming 2023/2024 biennial budget.  We are providing an opportunity for you – Tukwila’s residents, businesses and other stakeholders – to express your priorities for distributing the next City budget.

The 2023-2024 budget cycle will be challenging for the City. Revenues are slow to return to pre-pandemic levels. Inflation is at its highest level in 40 years, resulting in higher costs for supplies, materials, and wages. As a service organization, the majority of our costs are for salaries, which pay the people who provide the services, such as public safety, permitting, human services to name just a few.  Total revenues are not increasing as fast as expenditures and our current estimate, based on what we know today, is that to provide the same level of service we are expecting a $5.6 million shortfall in 2023. We do expect this estimate to change as we get updated revenue information as the year goes on, but do expect a difficult biennium over the next two years as we continue to climb out of the pandemic and are faced with such high inflation.  This is why your ideas about how to balance the budget by sharing with us your priorities are so critical.

A new budget tool is now available at TukwilaWA.gov/BYB where you can increase existing revenue sources or add a new revenue idea, reduce departments’ budgets or increase departments’ budgets, depending on your priorities. Your challenge, like ours, is to develop a balanced budget.

We’ve also created a narrated budget presentation (linked below in English, Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese) that provides information about the policies that guide our actions, an overview of the City’s budget and governmental functions, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), graphics to help you visualize our finances, and an introduction to the online Balancing Act tool.

Want to know more about how Tukwila spends its money or better understand the city budgeting process?  These links will provide you with more information: