By Richard Anderson and Brenda Stonecipher / For The Herald
Voters will be making an important choice in this year’s Everett race for mayor, which will alter our city’s future viability. Three members of the Everett City Council have unfairly attacked mayoral candidate Scott Murphy for doing what good leaders do: asking hard questions about the city’s current financial leadership and demanding accountability. We add our voices to these questions.
Everett has never been a wealthy city but, in the past, we were prudent in managing limited resources. Well managed cities keep money in a savings account, called “the surplus,” so they can fund unexpected financial needs. When the city spends less than it earns, the surplus grows.
In 2021, Everett had a surplus of $50 million. Revenues in 2021 were $140 million, and expenditures were $135 million, resulting in nearly $5 million added to the surplus, for a total of $55 million. Today, Everett’s 2025 approved budget shows only $169 million in revenue but $174 million in expenditures, with a $4.6 million deficit. By year’s end, our surplus will be $34 million, meaning $21 million (38 percent) has been spent in just four years. None was spent on unexpected financial needs, just paying regular bills. Like household budgets, using savings to support unsustainable spending is dangerous.
Beyond the issues with prior deficit spending, the mayor’s own six-year general government forecast shows that the remaining $34 million surplus will be gone by 2028 and that the City of Everett would be bankrupt, yet no solutions have been put forward to resolve this unthinkable scenario.
A review of spending tells the story. From 2021 through 2025, the mayor grew her office’s administration budget by 64 percent and increased spending on city communications by 137 percent as she prepared for reelection; none of which improves the average taxpayer’s life. She also poured over $7 million into consultants, lawyers and staff time to study building a new downtown stadium. Meanwhile, park ranger positions were eliminated, library hours slashed, the unhoused population skyrocketed, and we residents have been left to wonder where our priorities went.
In the fall of 2024, Scott Murphy and other residents spoke at several council meetings expressing concerns as the City Council considered the administration’s proposed property tax increase and the 2025 proposed $4.6 million deficit budget. During these comments, Murphy highlighted specific departmental budgets that had grown significantly since 2021 and the failure of the city to make contributions to the retired police and firefighter health care plans, for which the city currently owes $32 million. Murphy urged the council to consider either amending the mayor’s proposed deficit budget (similar to the balancing effort that Murphy and Brenda Stonecipher led when they were on council in 2021) or simply rejecting it.
At the same time, in 2024, the mayor asked taxpayers to approve a 44 percent increase on the city’s portion of our real estate tax, without any assurances of how those funds would be spent. Unsurprisingly, a resounding 60 percent of voters said no. Since then, there has been no plan put forward by this administration to address ongoing deficit spending.
As Everett taxpayers and business leaders, we believe the city is desperately in need of a turnaround. Taxpayers have spoken and they are unwilling to provide a blank check tax increase to the current administration. In short order, there will need to be cuts to bloated departmental budgets, the city must modernize and streamline processes so fewer staff are needed to run departments, and technology solutions will help city employees be more efficient. On the revenue side, additional revenue generated through a robust economic development plan focused on attracting new businesses to the city and retaining existing businesses and their associated revenue streams (i.e. sales and B&O taxes). If, after these efforts, new revenue is required, taxpayers should be engaged in a transparent process that provides the case for new revenue and assurances about how funds would be spent.
Everett has amazing potential! Future growth will occur regionally and ours will be energized further by the addition of light rail transit. Given its current precarious financial state, we believe Everett needs leadership with sound financial acumen and experience in creating a lean, efficient organization. Only through hard work and transparency can a mayor rebuild trust with our community. Let’s get our city back on the right track!
Richard Anderson served on the Everett City Council in 2014 and was a practicing CPA for more than 40 years. Brenda Stonecipher served on the Everett City Council from 2004 through 2023 and has been a CPA for more than 30 years.
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