Ways and Means had one of those useful little meetings where somebody actually looked at the numbers before waving money through.
The clearest example was the outside audit appropriation.
The administration came in asking for $115,000 from free cash for the auditing department’s professional and technical account. Then the number got amended on the floor to $107,000. Then, after a few questions, the committee cut that down to $12,000. Same meeting. Same item. Funny how that works when someone reads the balance sheet.
Chair Stephanie Smith laid out the problem plainly. This account already had only about $6,000 spent, with roughly $98,000 still sitting there. Yet the administration wanted to pile another $107,000 on top. Smith also noted that in prior years this audit account had been used for things that did not belong there, including legal fees and GFOA costs, “when they were not supposed to.” That matters, because once an account becomes a junk drawer, every new appropriation starts looking bigger than it really is.
Chief Administrative Financial Officer Omar Boukili confirmed the current outside audit engagement is $107,000 with Roselli, Clark and Associates. He also confirmed the city no longer works with CBIZ, the prior outside auditor. On procurement, Peter Pietrantonio asked the obvious question: does this have to go out to bid? Boukili’s answer was direct enough: “No, it’s exempt.” “Correct.”
Fine. Exempt is exempt. But exempt does not mean no one should ask whether the math makes sense.
And the math did not make sense as presented.
Katy Rogers made the move that actually mattered, amending the appropriation from $107,000 down to $12,000 so the account would land around $110,000 total instead of somewhere in the $205,000 to $215,000 range. That passed 4-0 by roll call.
That is what committee work is supposed to look like. Not speeches. Not panic. Not “trust us.” Just: how much is already there, what is the actual contract amount, and why are we stuffing the account with another six figures?
Boukili apparently wanted extra cushion. Every finance office likes cushion. Working people like not parking excess cash in the wrong line item because someone was sloppy with prior charges. The committee got that one right.
The committee also gave favorable action to a $40,000 appropriation for the advertising account. That item moved fast. Rogers made the motion for favorable action, Pietrantonio seconded, and the ayes had it.
No long discussion there, at least not in the summarized record. That leaves the public with the usual question: advertising for what, exactly, and why now? If there was a fuller explanation, it was not the memorable part of the meeting. That does not make the appropriation wrong. It just means the audit item got the scrutiny and the advertising item did not.
Then came an order to accept and expend a $43,119.03 grant from Second and Vine LLC, care of Block Properties, for a Bluebikes station at Second and Vine.
Again, the process here was more useful than the slogans these bike-share discussions usually attract.
Rogers noticed transportation staff was present and moved to invite them up. Eric Molinari, transportation planner with the city’s transportation and mobility operation, took the witness chair.
Pietrantonio asked the right question immediately. The area is “a very congested area,” so where exactly is this thing going?
Molinari said, “The station is planned to go on the corner of 2nd Street and Vine Street.” He added, “It’s going to be on the property of the developer as a part of the process.” He also explained the city’s usual practice: “If a developer is going to donate a station to us, we work that out ahead of time so that it’s not going to encroach too much on the public right of way.”
That is the key point. If the station is on developer property and not eating up scarce public right-of-way in an already tight area, that is a very different conversation than the usual vague talk about “mobility improvements.” Specifics matter.
Pietrantonio pressed a little more: “Okay. It’s going on their property?” Molinari did not lock in the exact final design from memory. He said he could provide that information and noted that typically, when these are sited with developers, the placement is worked out in advance.
Fair enough. Better to say you do not remember the exact design than pretend certainty you do not have. Still, the committee should get that final siting information in writing before this turns into another “everybody thought somebody else confirmed it” situation.
What did not happen here is also worth noting. Nobody tried to turn a donated Bluebikes station into a culture-war therapy session. Nobody acted like a $43,119.03 grant was either the salvation of urban transportation or the end of civilization. It was treated as what it is: a site-specific infrastructure question tied to a private development.
That is refreshing.
So the meeting boiled down to this: the committee shaved a padded audit request down to the amount actually needed, moved along a $40,000 advertising appropriation with little visible debate, and reviewed a developer-funded Bluebikes station with at least some attention to the basic question of where the thing will physically go.
Not glamorous. But useful.
And in Everett, useful beats performative almost every time.