On Tuesday night, the Bethel City Council voted to adopt the fiscal year 2018 budget with a vote of four to two. The dissenting votes were from Mayor Rick Robb and Vice Mayor Fred Watson. Both had remaining concerns over the budget not being balanced.
The increased funding for transit service and the general fund spending more money than it brings in were among a number of concerns that they raised.
“I’m concerned that we have raised the funding for the transit system, yet we have not found a way to actually pay for that raise,” said Mayor Robb, “because we don’t know what the fund balance for the system fund balance is. So, those are some general issues I have with this budget.”
But Council member Leif Albertson said that there were many compromises on all sides, and he regarded the final document as responsible.
“I also have a lot of faith in our Finance Director, our City Manager, as well as the department heads that came to bring us input on these. I think we got useful information, and we did the best we could with that information,” said Albertson, “So in closing, I believe we should pass this budget tonight.”
Which, shortly thereafter, they did. Ultimately, the opposing arguments from Mayor Robb and Vice Mayor Watson were not enough to persuade the other four members in attendance, minus absent Council member Alisha Welch, to vote nay.