LYNNWOOD — John Moir, Lynnwood’s finance director who walked out of a City Council work session March 17 following a heated exchange over the budget, has resigned.
Mayor Don Gough announced Moir’s resignation at the start of the March 22 council meeting. On the agenda was discussion about hiring an outside consultant to look at the city’s finances.
Moir, 62, joined Lynnwood in January 2008 after serving as senior vice president of Springsted Inc., a public finance and management consultant to counties, cities, towns and special districts. He was paid $144,615 annually.
Councilman Mark Smith said that he was sorry to see Moir leave. “John is a consummate professional, and I think the city is much worse off because of his departure.”
Councilwoman Kerri Lonergan criticized Gough’s administration over the city’s budget woes. “In my opinion, the administration has sugar-coated this situation and not provided the council with timely information,” Lonergan said.
The city’s budget has been topic of heated discussion for weeks putting council and the mayor at odds. It came to a head when Moir abruptly left the work session 38 minutes into the meeting. Council members peppered Moir with questions about the way city funds have been allocated to plug budget gaps and whether information was being withheld. They demanded he produce financial statements they’d asked for during a meeting two nights earlier.
Moir said at the time: “I don’t need this, I do not need this, folks, I’m leaving.”
Since 2006, some council members have complained that their requests for information on the budget and other issues have been ignored by Gough, who was elected to a second term in November.
Those complaints have led to finger-pointing. Gough said he is giving the council everything it has asked for.
“Everyone is frustrated,” he read from a statement he wrote to The Herald. “That’s understandable. It’s time for everyone to pause, take three deep breaths and refocus on putting ideas and solutions forward. Identifying and examining solutions is what is in the best interests of our city. Anything else is a distraction, not useful, and a disservice to our city.
“(Council members) chose to talk about other issues for 45 minutes rather than talking about real solutions. You gotta have solutions. You can’t just talk about blame.”
“We were told everything was hunky-dory, and yet nearly every department in the city has overspent its budget,” Councilman Mark Smith said.
Tensions have escalated between the legislative branch council and the executive branch mayor since February when a new, worst-case scenario put the city’s two-year budget nearly $5 million behind original estimates.
The economic recession has cut deeply into one of the city’s main sources of income: sales taxes.
From 2008 to 2009, the city, home to Alderwood mall, saw its sales tax collections drop $3.2 million, or more than 17 percent, Vicki Heilman, the city’s assistant finance director, told council at the work session.
To save money, the city sliced 3.5 percent of its budget in the middle of 2009 with across-the-board cuts and saved more by postponing some capital projects. Under the mayor’s plan, the city would cut more from the $91.7 million general fund budget.
On March 15, Gough proposed cutting $4.8 million from the budget. Council members considered raising taxes.
Lynnwood has already depleted its $2 million reserve or “rainy day” fund to plug budget holes. And it has taken $3 million from its utility fund — money that must be paid back — into its general operating fund, the one it uses to pay for basic services such as fire and police, as well as employee salaries.
Oscar Halpert writes for the Herald of Everett.
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