The day before the State Legislature began to reveal a big property tax hike is coming for education, Sammamish City Council members met with staff in a retreat to examine City finances.
The Council met with staff Thursday afternoon and evening. The State began releasing information about its new budget, with tax hikes, on Friday.
Council Member Tom Odell, looking at the 2017 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) that identifies nearly $90m in spending through 2023 and up to $165m in future years, inclusive of the $90m, and declared officials need to examine all potential revenue sources to pay for these projects.
Translated, this means potential new taxes.
At the same time, Council Member Tom Hornish remains unconvinced that budget cuts aren’t impossible and if these are deep enough, funding the road projects could come out of operations and current revenues.
Sammamish faces large road building expenses if it follows through on everything it wants to do or thinks it should do.
Sammamish Comment 