As Pasco faces a multimillion dollar budget shortfall, departments are being asked to tighten their wallets. Perhaps hardest hit would be the Pasco Police Department, which faces a slew of cuts to longstanding, valued resources and programs.
Pasco City Council is scheduled to approve the city’s 2025-26 biennial budget on Monday night, after more than a month of presentations and discussions.
The city is prepared to spend about $9.7 million in reserves over the next two years as needed, as well as pull back spending across departments to make up for operational deficits in the budget.
It’s unclear how much of an impact the police department’s budget cuts would have, but the list of proposed eliminations is significant.
The city is proposing closing two district stations (Kurtzman and Alderwood), freezing the planned traffic unit, delaying adding a Special Victims Unit detective, postponing the Citizen’s Academy program, suspending contracted domestic violence contract staff and pausing the abandoned RV impound program.
While the police department proposed these cuts, the department’s total budget will increase from about $47.6 million (2023 and 2024 combined) to $52.5 million (2025 and 2026 combined) from the city’s general fund.
The council reviewed a list of proposed budget cuts again this week.
They requested a prioritized list from the police department to review before determining next steps for what to include, or not include, in the budget.
The council asked to add back $120,000 for downtown cleanup from the city abatement fund and continue to pay for gate closing services at parks.
Council members also reached a consensus to add back funding for the Pasco-Colima Cooperation and Friendship Agreement (COPA). It would receive $15,000.
Mayor Pete Serrano, Mayor Pro Tem David Milne, Councilwoman Melissa Blasdel and Councilman Peter Harpster voted to reinstate the money.
Councilmembers Blanche Barajas, Charles Grimm and Leo Perales were opposed.
The city has also proposed eliminating weekly farmers market entertainment and the Veterans Day parade.
“All I see is a less safe, less fun Pasco,” Perales said during an initial budget discussion at a city council meeting last month.
Pasco City Manager Adam Lincoln told the Tri-City Herald that all city departments will implement “lean strategies” to create a long-term practice of not spending unnecessarily.
The city is also looking into strategic staffing decisions, including incentivizing retirements, leaving staff positions vacant and pooling administrative staff.
Some members of the city council believe that the city is due for a property or sales tax increase.
Sales and property tax revenue in Pasco lags behind Kennewick and Richland, even though the city’s population is likely to exceed Kennewick’s population in the next year.
“Our city’s population continues to increase and increase and increase, and taxes haven’t kept up with that,” Harpster told the Tri-City Herald.
“If your reserves are getting you to a balanced budget, it’s not really a balanced budget,” he said.
“We’ve got healthy reserves, but we want to make sure that we’re not just fixing the problem for the upcoming biennial budget, but that we’re fixing the problem long term so that future councils and future residents don’t have to deal with these issues 10, 15 or 20 years from now.”
Cities in Washington are capped at raising property taxes by 1% per year, which Lincoln said makes it hard to keep up with growth.
“In our area, between sales tax and property tax, Pasco collects about $10 million less per year than Kennewick, even though they are similar in size to us,” Lincoln said. “Even Richland collects up to $5 million more per year, and they have 20,000 fewer people.”
Lincoln said that if the city council is interested in making changes, city staff would most likely suggest making a levy lid increase on property taxes or adding a car tab fee, rather than increasing sales tax.
Of the Tri-Cities, Pasco currently has the highest sales tax rate at 8.9%.
Other options for the council’s consideration include establishing a Transportation Benefit District, Metropolitan Park District or Emergency Medical Services levy.
Just this week, the city of Kennewick announced that it will increase sales tax to cover existing pavement improvements and transportation projects. It also created a new government authority — a Transportation Benefit District, chaired by the Kennewick City Council — to oversee the new tax.
Kennewick’s budget goes into effect April 1 next year and increases the city’s total sales tax to 8.8%.
Lincoln told the Tri-City Herald that many cities in Washington, and across the U.S., are working to overcome revenue deficits in their budgets.
“As we grow, we’re going to start falling behind when it comes to being able to provide certain services at the same level as our partner cities if we don’t talk about doing things more efficiently or with more funding,” Lincoln said.
Lincoln added that the city budget is a flexible document, so it can be amended by the city council at any time.
The last biennial budget from 2023-24 included an aggressive expansion of Pasco city staff. Personnel costs took up a large portion — nearly 80% — of the budget, Lincoln said. The city was also anticipating economic development through growth including the Broadmoor area.
Planning for the 2023-24 biennium projected a $15 million reduction in reserves, or $7.5 million per year.
Actual results show that in 2023, no reserves were spent. Pasco’s 2024 budget is expected to end with a total operational deficit demanding up to $3 million in reserves.
