Sam Fletcher reports from the Oak Harbor City Council meeting of Tue., Nov. 19, 2024 for the Whidbey News-Times.
The major changes within the Oak Harbor 2025-2026 biennial budget include an increase in the cost of water and more funds allocated to looming projects such as upgrading the marina.
The total budget for next year is over $167 million, which appears to be a 9.4% increase from this year. However, once fund transfer and interfund allocation costs are removed, the actual operation funds are a decrease of 0.5% from the previous budget, said David Goldman, deputy city administrator.
The budget was adopted unanimously.
They Said It
Mayor Ronnie Wright emphasized the value of staff, grant funding for capital projects, reduced utility rates and the priority list approved by the city council.
“This year’s a bit more complicated, because we’re setting up funding to take care of what we know about upcoming costs which we haven’t had before,” Councilmember Jim Woessner said at a council meeting Tuesday.
Woessner noted the improvements Goldman’s made to the budget process, including greater discussion among department heads and deeper dives into line items.
“As a guy who’s going through this for the seventh time, it doesn’t get any easier, but it does get easier,” he said.
