Marlene Feist

First Look at the 2020 Budget

Marlene Feist, Interim Communications Director, 509.625.6505


Thursday, September 5, 2019 at 3:44 p.m.

Budget season is here. Mayor David Condon has unveiled his proposed 2020 Program Budget, and it’s all about getting to a safer, smarter and healthier City!

With the release of the budget proposal, we are embarking on work that will continue all fall. We will work with the City Council and the public to understand the budget and make additional changes until we file the draft final budget by the first of November.

The City’s annual budget really is our most concrete statement of our priorities, and as you would expect, it aligns with our joint Council-Administration Strategic Plan, One Spokane.

With this budget, we will continue to make government more affordable to the people we serve, accountable to their expectations and aligned to their priorities.

We are committed to continuing progress on property crime. As part of the 2019 budget, we are proposing to add 20 more police personnel. On the Fire side, our proposal retains 30 firefighters who had been paid for through federal grant dollars. These public safety investments are possible because of the levy our citizens approved in February.

In addition we will:

  • Make investments in outreach and shelters for those who are experiencing homelessness.
  • Continue with infrastructure construction to help our river and improve our street system.
  • Launch construction on our libraries of the future, starting at the Downtown and Shadle branches.
  • Market opportunities for economic development in our PDAs on the West Plains and in NE Spokane.

We still have some work to do. In this initial release of the 2020 Program budget, we are about $3.5 million out of balance. We will work throughout the fall to review revenue expectations and reevaluate planned expenditures to find savings.

And, ultimately, we will share a balanced budget with funded community priorities.

More information on the Proposed 2020 Program Budget is available on our web site.

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