(The Center Square) – Following back-to-back deficits, the Spokane City Council is putting together its budget priorities for the 2027-28 biennium, with a focus on the courts and fully funding local reserves.
The officials balanced a $13 million general fund gap heading into 2026 and a $25 million gap heading into 2025. Both deficits required cuts, but the council also relied on tax hikes proposed by the mayor’s office, one of which is voter-approved, along with a councilmanic parking tax and utility tax increases.
The council weighed different priorities during a special committee meeting on Thursday amid plans to adopt a “balanced, realistic 2027-2028 biennial budget” by early to mid-December. The final priorities will be put to a vote by July, ahead of upcoming budget projections that could outline another deficit.
Budget projections from last summer forecasted a $19 million to $26 million general fund gap in 2027.
“Our revenues don’t look like, in the next biennium, they’re going to suddenly start growing at a faster rate than our expenses,” Council Budget Director Kate Fairborn explained during Thursday’s meeting.
“There is no magic money lying around, so if you do decide to fund anything more, that by definition means you are going to be funding something less,” she said, previewing the difficult decisions ahead.
The first priority discussed on Thursday centered on increasing funding for the city’s municipal court.
The bench presides over criminal misdemeanors and civil infractions, processing about 101,000 tickets annually. Court officials warned in March that case filings are increasing under a camping ban the dais passed last October, and that the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices are running out of space.
Fairborn said she’s been engaging with Mayor Lisa Brown’s administration to reach a “common mind” on how much funding the court should receive, but noted that the council hasn’t settled on a figure.
The council budgeted about $10 million for the court in 2023-24 and about $12 million in 2025-26.
“It’s not about what we want, it’s like, what’s the pool that we’re taking from, and who are, you know, we potentially robbing in order to pay somebody else,” Councilmember Kate Telis weighed in Thursday.
The second budget priority piggybacked off the first; Spokane, like other municipalities, is facing new public defender caseload standards from the Washington Supreme Court.
Spokane’s attorneys usually handle about 320 to 360 cases annually, but the high court has dropped the limit from 400 to 120.
Chief Public Defender Nick Antush told the council in March that his office has already refused over 160 cases so far this year due to a lack of resources – cases where taxpayers already foot the bill for the arrests, jail and other justice services, only to be thrown out due to a lack of public defenders.
The city’s 2025-26 budget funded 20 public defenders, but Antush says they may need to triple that headcount over the next decade to keep pace with the new caseload standards by the 2036 deadline.
The public defender’s office had a $6.5 million budget in 2023-24, rising to $8.4 million in 2025-26.
“The city will definitely need to lean into the funding of public defenders more than we have, and their facilities and related costs,” Fairborn said, referencing a lack of space in the office and competitive pay.
The last concrete priority discussed on Thursday focuses on stabilizing the city’s general fund reserves.
Former Mayor Nadine Woodward took office at the end of 2019, when the city’s general fund had an unassigned general fund balance of about $27 million and total reserves of about $64.5 million.
By the time Mayor Lisa Brown took over in 2024, the unappropriated fund balance had fallen to $7.5 million.
As of March 31, 2026, the city had $33.4 million in total general fund reserves, with $5 million of that being unappropriated. About $7 million of the total is held in a revenue stabilization reserve, which is supposed to contain 3.5% of annual expenditures; it currently accounts for only about 2.7% of that.
About $21 million of the total general fund balance is in a contingency reserve, intended to contain 10% of annual expenditures. At its current level, the fund accounts for only about 7.7% of annual spending.
Fairborn said those reserves have remained steady over the last few years, but the money won’t go as far when the city wants to use it in the future due to rising spending and inflation. She suggested that the council reduce overall general funding spending by 0.5% in 2027-28 and refill the city’s reserves.
“We have to start making some attempt to replenish our reserves, they have been depleted, reduced significantly over the last few years,” Council President Betsy Wilkerson said on Thursday.
These priorities are subject to change over the coming weeks and could expand to include increasing funding for the city’s libraries, avoiding deferred maintenance and reaching long-term sustainability.
