City Council "budgets by priority" as described by Council President Angela Birney here.
| City Hall credit Redmond Reporter |
Redmond Mayor John Marchione presented the 2019-20 preliminary biennial budget at the city council meeting on Oct. 2.
“The next six to eight years will be crucial in shaping the fabric of Redmond,” Mayor Marchione said. “Redmond will receive $8 to $10 billion of private or non city investment. We must create the organizational structure and capacity to keep pace and manage growth.”
The $797 million budget will run from January 2019 through December 2020. The city strives to continue providing the highest priority services to the community. Redmond selected the Budgeting By Priorities (BP) process once again because it focuses budget decisions on citizen priorities.
The budget is organized around the city’s six community priorities: vibrant economy, clean and green, diverse and connected community, infrastructure, responsible government and safety.
Mayor Marchione said there is little change in the allocation of resources among the priorities. Infrastructure received 51 percent of the resources, public safety received 19 percent, responsible government received 15 percent, clean and green received 6 percent, vibrant economy received 5 percent and diverse and connected community received 4 percent.
Some of the resources allocated in clean and green were to continue the tree canopy program, maintain stream and river quality and the beautification of the city. To measure success, the city is prioritizing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Resources allocated in diverse and connected community is a proposed increase in the city’s contribution to arch half a million dollars a year, add translation services for residents to access, and continue success with events recreation and recycling. The budget also proposes reviewing land-use policies and regulations to aggressively tackle homelessness issues. To measure success, the city is providing spaces for communities to gather, measure the number of volunteers, affordable housing units and collaborating with partners in the community to strengthen and maintain the success of Redmond’s arts and events.
The proposed budget includes funding and infrastructure for transportation, facility management preparing for Sound Transit’s arrival in 2023 and 2024 and to maintain their current assets. To measure infrastructure success, the city is protecting their assets, getting more from their assets and serving costumers.
Some resources allocated for responsible government are to enhance the city’s cultural inclusion program, strengthen technology strategies, asset management system and safety programs. In addition, the city wants to invest in employees through succession planning training. Redmond’s organizational development plan to measure these priorities is to evaluate financial bond rating, resident feedback and surveys, their employee feedback and retention and ability to protect infrastructure.
Some investments under safety include additional resource for records management case management and best practices for fire and development review program. The city’s measurement and objective is safety and to protect life and property.
The resources allocated in vibrant community focus on supporting the small businesses through easier systems and reporting. The city is also creating a special development review team to process the Microsoft refresh efforts. To measure these efforts, Redmond is including a number of business licenses and providing timely costumer service for building and plan review and to encourage code compliance over code enforcement.
The budget also included the adoption of the 1 percent property tax increase, a 2.4 percent inflationary in the head tax, and an increase in the utility tax on cable television by 3 percent. The cable utility tax will be less than $3 a month for most households.
The community is encouraged to attend the public hearings being held on Oct.16 and Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers.
For more information about the city’s budget, visit
No comments:
Post a Comment
COMMENT HERE - COMMENTS ARE MODERATED