Nov 6, 2020 3 min read

Washington’s mayor and City Council held the first reading of the 2021 budget ordinance during virtual meeting Thursday afternoon.

There isn’t a tax increase in the proposed budget for 2021, which is $14,665,428, just slightly less than 2020’s $14.7 million.

There’s still some work to do on the budget, which is not yet balanced, according to deputy finance officer Susan Koehler. Anticipated expenses exceed anticipated revenue by $229,512.

“We still need to make approximately $229,000 in revisions, but I am 100% confident we’ll be able to make that amount up without a tax increase going into next year,” Koehler said in an email. “The only real changes were mostly contractual obligations, and we were extremely conservative with budgeting for anticipated revenues considering the impact of COVID-19.”

The pandemic may have a big impact on revenue, according to Councilman Joe Manning, who is head of the finance department. It’s his “biggest concern,” he said.

“We’re anticipating that our liquid fuel revenue may be down because people didn’t travel as much,” he said. “There will be a parking revenue loss, too, because people were working from home.”

Meter enforcement had been suspended for much of the year, and many city parking lots and the garage weren’t being used as frequently, Manning said. The city typically brings in about $300,000 in parking revenue, he said.

“At this point, the reality is that a lot of those revenue streams are going to be down,” he said. “These all start to add up. We haven’t calculated what the loss is or what it’s projected to be.”

Manning also said the city “got crushed with overtime this year,” due to retirements and military leaves in the police and fire departments. Because the civil service testing to hire those positions is such a lengthy process, the city had to fill those vacancies with overtime personnel, he said.

“There was no lapse in service or anything of that nature,” Manning said. “If we had someone in the fire department on military leave, they covered his shift with somebody, who was paid overtime. It had a huge impact on the budget.”

Mayor Scott Putnam also mentioned that businesses closing and people being out of work this year could impact mercantile and earned income tax revenues. He said during a recent conference call with Sen. Bob Casey’s office that some municipalities in the state were reporting between 5% and 25% revenue losses.

“We’ve had to move things around to get to where we are on this first reading,” Putnam said.

Putnam called the budget “close,” saying that by the second reading next month, they hope to have it balanced and finalized.

“At this point, there’s not a tax increase,” Putnam said. “We’re working hard and trimming everywhere we can.”

Some of the largest line items in the budget include police and fire services, pension funds, health care and benefits for employees and debt service. The proposed budget may be accessed by the public on the city’s website.