Finance Director Jodi Adams. Leader photo by Mallory Kruml
Finance Director Jodi Adams presented Port Townsend’s city council with the third and final list of supplemental budget appropriations for 2025 at its Dec. 8 meeting.!
“Supplemental 3 has a total expenditure increase of $327,766,” Adams wrote in an email to The Leader. “Of that amount, there’s $100,933 in interfund transfers making that actual spending increase of $226,833.”
Council members approved the first reading of the supplemental budget at that meeting and voted unanimously to adopt it on Dec. 15.!
“Just for those that are kind of coming fresh into this whole supplemental budget process, because we budget at the fund level, this isn’t like the city has blown the 2025 budget, and I know council knows this, but it is a hard thing to communicate when we are trying to pack this in a tight agenda,” City Manager John Mauro said. “It’s just that authorization from council for these specific line items exceeded what we thought.”
New spending was kept to a “minimal amount, and only items that were emergency repairs or had unexpected price increases” were included, the city wrote in the agenda bill.!!
As for general fund spending, the city increased its unemployment budget by $5,000 to accommodate any new and unexpected claims that could come in by the end of the year.!
“We do believe we have enough budgeted to cover the fourth quarter unemployment costs if they come in the same amount as the third quarter,” Adams said. “We are adding a little bit of extra in case we have unexpected claims that we haven’t had in previous quarters.”!
The Community Services Department received an additional $14,000 to cover expenses related to the October vandalism of the portapotty outside the Cotton Building in October.!
“That was obviously an unforeseen expense,” Adams said.!
Public Works received $60,400 to correct errors in its budgeting sheet and to stay within its labor budget. The budget also allocates $130,933 for hot-spot work on San Juan Avenue, plus an increase of $95,933 from the Transportation Benefit District to help fund the project.!
Lastly, the Information Technology Department received an additional $16,550 to account for previously underfunded labor costs and midyear increases in software licensing costs.
