CAMAS — The Camas City Council approved Mayor Steve Hogan’s 2025-26 biennial budget, which includes new revenue sources and dips into reserves to fund business as usual in the city.
The council voted 4-2 Dec. 2 in favor of the $322 million “hold steady” biennial budget funded by $284 million in revenues and $38 million from the city’s reserves.
Councilor members Leslie Lewallen and Jennifer Senescu cast the two no votes.
“This budget is stagnant, holding expenses flat despite city growth, with restrictions to limit spending,” Finance Director Cathy Huber Nickerson said. The budget for the previous biennium was $250 million.
Huber Nickerson said Hogan worked with city staff to restrict city expenses by keeping open 16 positions created in 2023 that were never filled. Hogan and the city also restructured the city’s general fund to move information technology and facilities into internal service funds and keep budget increases to critical needs for public safety, among other cost-saving measures.
The 2025-26 budget will readopt the city’s 2 percent utility tax, take the state-allowed 1 percent property tax increase, increase city fees, form a transportation benefit district funded by $20 annual car-tab fees and impose a 0.1 percent sales tax increase to help fund the city’s streets.
The budget also authorizes a ballot proposition to increase utility taxes — which would bump the tax rate to 6 percent — to fund police staff, equipment and training, Huber Nickerson said.
Camas voters will weigh in on the utility tax increase in February. If approved, the new money would go to the Camas Police Department to hire new supervisors and provide “overhires” to cover what could be an onslaught of police department retirements in the next five years.
Camas Police Chief Tina Jones has said the department does not have enough supervisors and that she does not believe the department is prepared for the number of retirements that could come in the next few years.
Jones had asked the mayor to include funding for two lieutenants, two patrol sergeants, one administrative supervisor and two police officers in his proposed 2025-26 budget.
If the levy is approved, it would raise $1 million per year to fund the new positions, as well as purchase the vehicles and equipment those officers would require.
