Commentary
As the Sammamish City Council heads into its retreat tomorrow evening, there is one topic that will get short shrift: the City’s finances.
In Monday’s Sammamish Comment post, I outlined the City’s own 2017-2018 budget that has a 73% decline in its cash balance from the end of 2016 to the end 0f 2018.
The budget has a 30-minute allocation on the retreat agenda. It’s not enough, and the City Council has been ducking the budget ramifications for the last two years.
The City faces being out of cash in 2019 at the current spend rate. (See Operations vs Capital Funds, below.) Action needs to be taken this year. It’s been put off yet again.
There is simply no other way to put it: the City Council and Administration have been irresponsible to not face up to the coming budget realities sooner.