Marlene Feist

Mayor Rolls Out 2020 Proposed Budget

Marlene Feist, Interim Communications Director, 509.625.6505

Friday, November 1, 2019 at 4:36 p.m.

At the City, annual budget deliberations speed up as the year winds down. On Nov. 1, Mayor David Condon rolled out his proposed 2020 budget. The City Council now will review that budget and hold public hearings. By state law, the City has to adopt a balanced budget before the end of the year.

The Mayor’s proposed, which totals $1.1 billion, is designed to ensure that our investments will support the priorities of our citizens.

The 2020 Mayor’s budget is the culmination of 8 years’ worth of work. 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.

And most importantly, it supports the goals and initiatives of our joint Council-Administration One Spokane Strategic Plan, which is designed to propel us toward our desired future. We want to be a safer, smarter, and healthier City!

“Through strict adherence to our budget principles, we have established and maintained significant financial stability at the City during the last eight years. We shouldn’t take this for granted,” says Mayor Condon. “We know the dollars that our citizens provide us are precious. We must invest them wisely to get the outcomes our citizens deserve.”

The budget includes:

  • A $205 million General Fund, which pays for basic government services, including police, fire, parks, libraries, and streets. Planning and social services funding is also found here.
  • A $356 million budget for enterprise funds, which include our water, wastewater, and solid waste utilities and golf.
  • The rest pays for our capital program, debt service and internal services like technology, accounting and finance, and fleet services.

Here are some investment highlights. The budget:

  • Includes 20 more police personnel and 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.
  • Creates the City’s own emergency management director, following best practices for urban centers.
  • Make investments in outreach and shelters for those who are experiencing homelessness.
  • Continues with infrastructure construction to help our river and improve our street system.
  • Launches construction on our libraries of the future, starting at the Downtown and Shadle branches.
  • Creates a more responsive, adaptable workforce. We’re also focusing on efforts to expand the diversity of our workforce, with a new Human Resources Analyst for diversity programs and to execute on the Multicultural Strategic Plan.
  • Markets opportunities for economic development in our PDAs on the West Plains and in NE Spokane.

More information on the Mayor’s Proposed 2020 budget is available on our web site.

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