Mayor Robert Van Campen rolled out a $312.3 million FY27 budget this week and, at least on paper, the main message is not “new programs for everybody.” It is damage control, cleanup, and an attempt to get a handle on costs that were apparently allowed to drift for years.
That is probably the most useful part of the whole presentation.
The mayor said the administration spent its opening months reviewing “spending practices, internal controls and long-term liabilities inherited by the City.” That is bureaucratic language, but the plain-English version is simple enough: they looked under the hood and did not like what they saw.
One number jumps off the page. Employee benefits are projected to approach $41 million in FY27, driven largely by health insurance costs. Van Campen said the plan design had “remained largely untouched for nearly 14 years.” Fourteen years is a long time to leave a major cost center sitting there and hope the bill behaves itself out of courtesy.
He also announced changes that sound less glamorous than a ribbon cutting, but matter more if the city is serious about basic competence. The administration says it is putting in new financial review and accounting procedures, limiting vacation carryover liabilities, and ending take-home vehicles for non-union, non-public safety employees beginning in July, with emergency exceptions requiring direct mayoral approval.
Again, none of this is sexy. That is fine. A city budget is not supposed to be sexy.
The sharpest line in the release may be the one about Encore tax revenue. The administration says it found “over $5.5 million in reported Encore personal property tax revenue the City could not collect.” That deserves a lot more attention than the usual budget-season applause lines. If revenue was being counted that was not actually collectible, that is not a small bookkeeping oops. That is the kind of thing that makes future budgets wobble.
Van Campen also made clear this is “not a budget built around broad expansion or large amounts of flexible new spending.” In other words, the budget is growing because everything costs more: schools, public safety, insurance, basic city operations, roads, buildings, water, sewer, and keeping the lights on.
Everett Public Schools make up about 47 percent of the total city and school operating budget. The mayor called that investment “a first step” toward making the district “an urban model of excellence and success.” Fine. That is the easy part to say in a speech. The harder part is whether the administration and school leadership can show where the money is going and what taxpayers are getting for it.
The administration is also reshuffling its DEI structure rather than eliminating it. Resources are being moved into Human Resources and the Mayor’s Office, with plans for an Equity and Access Officer focused on workplace training, ADA coordination, and inclusive recruitment, plus a Mayor’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and Community Engagement role. Van Campen said, “Make no mistake: diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility remain priorities of this administration.”
So what is this budget, really? It looks less like a victory lap and more like a first pass at financial triage. That is not a bad thing. Everett has had enough shiny language covering up sloppy process. The real test now is whether the council digs into the numbers, especially the health insurance pressure and that missing $5.5 million in uncollectible revenue, or just nods through another speech about “transparency” and calls it reform.