CITY OF SUMNER ADMINISTRATION
September 26, 2012
Dear Sumner City Council: We are pleased to present to you the preliminary version of the 2013-2014 budget. As you are aware, by law, we must have a balanced budget by the end of the year. It is our role to offer you suggestions as to how we get there which reflect both fiscal reality and the values we envision for our community. The final decisions remain with you. This is perhaps the hardest and the most important way you set policy in the City of Sumner as this document literally points us as an executive department toward what we are able to accomplish in the next two years. The good news is that the City of Sumner is in good shape financially. We continue to thank previous administrations which provided the leadership to guide the City through economic downturn. We started cutting our spending early and have maintained an ongoing discipline that keeps Sumner from facing the same drastic decisions that are before many of our neighboring cities. We also must thank our staff who have been innovative, going above and beyond, in finding creative ways to do more with less. The bad news is that while we started cutting early and have maintained ongoing fiscal discipline, some of those efforts included not spending on vital equipment such as vehicles, software updates, etc. that the staff need in order to provide basic services to our citizens. We must now think of how to spend carefully and creatively in order to ensure our ability to provide service while keeping the same discipline in our budget. There are also some factors outside the staff’s control that greatly affect the budget. Our golf course: we simply cannot continue down the same road with the golf as we have without serious consequence to the services we provide our citizens. You are already well aware of the policy decision ahead of you about the golf course and its payments due, so we won’t go further into that here. State funding: the State of Washington is facing what is currently a $1 billion hole that many believe will quickly become a $2 billion hole. Cities like Sumner receive funding from the State in various areas, and we should be aware that one way for the State to fill that hole is to remove those city revenue streams. Medical costs: the entire country continues to see what the Federal changes mean for our medical costs. So far, it looks like it will mean higher costs for the City of Sumner. The budget is critical to both the short and long-term success of the City’s operation. It establishes priorities for the financial expenditures, staffing, and allocation of other resources. This document continues to fulfill the City’s organizational mission and address the City
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