MUKILTEO — The Mukilteo City Council has not yet adopted its proposed $16.9 million budget.

The council was expected to pass the budget after a public hearing late Monday night, but chose to delay its adoption until next Monday.

Instead, council members apparently decided to tally up the new budget numbers after a proposal to raise rents by 50 percent at the Rosehill Community Center was squelched.

An outcry by tenants succeeded in persuading council members to hold rent increases to 20 percent. Many tenants said they could not afford the higher rents, which would force them to close their doors.

But the decision to roll back the scheduled rent decreased the city’s expected savings by $30,000, sending council members back to their calculators.

"They wanted extra time. They just wanted to see what the rents would look like," city manager Rich Leahy said Tuesday.

The lower 20 percent rent increase is expected to generate about $8,000, rather than the $38,000 anticipated under the scheduled 50 percent increase.

On Monday, the council whittled away at the city’s remaining $183,000 budget deficit by cutting the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival, reducing the vehicle replacement fee fund and eliminating a clerk at Rosehill, among other moves.

Cuts the council agreed to last week, along with raising rents at Rosehill, added up to $263,000. Those cuts included not hiring two paramedics and cutting items such as large-item trash pickup, computer upgrades, training and the use of temporary labor.

At $16.9 million, the 2004 budget is 27 percent less than this year’s $23.2 million budget. It will be the city’s smallest budget since 1998.

The budget reflects that the city has almost completed construction of the police and public works building. No new major buildings are scheduled to be built in 2004.

The buildings were financed with one-time revenues from new growth, which has since dried up with the recent economic downturn.

Reporter Janice Podsada: 425-339-3029 or podsada@heraldnet.com.