Lawmakers Make Last-Minute Move to Save Wash. Police Positions

Yakima City Council members on Tuesday made a last-minute decision to increase utility taxes by 1% — a move that will generate enough revenue to save some police positions that had been slated for cuts under the 2026 budget.

The changes will not increase utility rates for consumers, but instead will be absorbed by the city.

For months, the City Council engaged in discussions about how to address a $9 million shortfall. Council members approved $3 million in cuts over the summer and adopted a balanced budget last week through an additional $6 million in reductions.

The second round of cuts included $3 million from the Yakima Police Department, including 12 police officer positions, one sergeant position, four community service officer positions, an analyst and analyst supervisor and reductions to radio purchasing funds and to the department’s contract with the Yakima Humane Society. Police Chief Shawn Boyle has warned that those cuts could have significant impacts — especially on quality-of-life issues and proactive policing.

City staff also prepared options to increase revenue through tax increases. A 1/10th of 1% sales tax would have generated an estimated $2.7 million for law enforcement, while utility tax increases for water and stormwater, wastewater and refuse would have generated an additional $600,000 per 1% increase.

However, council member Rick Glenn made a motion to remove those items from the agenda, citing his desire not to raise taxes for constituents. The council agreed in a 4-3 vote.

Absorbing the costs

On Tuesday, Glenn brought the issue back to the council after learning it was possible to temporarily increase utility taxes without raising customer rates.

Yakima City Council

Yakima City Council member Rick Glenn is pictured during a meeting Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024, at Yakima City Hall in Yakima, Wash.

In Yakima, the city charges taxes for water and stormwater, wastewater and refuse services, and those taxes generate revenue. Ordinarily, the city would immediately incorporate any new tax increases into customers’ utility rates — but Public Works Director Scott Schafer said it’s possible to avoid that by absorbing the costs short-term.

“The rate structures are set up based on operational costs, capital improvement projects that are needed,” Schafer told the Yakima Herald-Republic. “We're absorbing those costs — so it's not going to be going towards those capital improvement projects. It's not going towards operation for, for example, wastewater.”

Doing so isn’t a long-term solution, Schafer emphasized.

At Tuesday’s meeting, council members voted to suspend the rules and unanimously voted in favor of three ordinances, increasing each of the city’s utility taxes from 20% to 21%. The ordinances included a sunset clause of three years.

Police Chief Shawn Boyle said the additional $600,000 in revenue won’t cover all of the positions cut from the department, but it could help prevent some planned layoffs. He said his priority is to maintain the department’s community service officers, who address quality-of-life issues like parking enforcement and animal control, and keep some of the department’s analyst positions and its proactive policing unit in place.

The new tax rates will go into effect next year.

“The customer will not see a difference on their bill to reflect that,” Schafer said. “So that's totally just going to be absorbed by us. We'll just have to postpone certain things here and there to make it work, but that's what we've got to do.”

___________________

© 2025 Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.).

Visit www.yakima-herald.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.