Tenino Mayor Dave Watterson, along with the Tenino City Council and city staff, will host a community meeting to address the recently announced budget deficit — and budget reporting discrepancies that created the deficit — Saturday, Nov. 9, according to a notice posted on the city’s website.
The meeting is scheduled to run from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Tenino High School gymnasium located at 500 W. Second Ave. in Tenino.
“Accounting discrepancies were discovered last year, and city staff immediately embarked on a thorough examination of the city’s budget,” the city stated on its website. “It was found that the City of Tenino does not have money to support many city operations.”
Discrepancies resulted in the city’s expenditures outpacing its revenue by an estimated $1.4 million going back to 2021.
Ultimately, the overstatement this year resulted in the city spending nearly $1.3 million of its restricted funds in its 2024 budget.
Watterson, the council and city staff will be at the meeting to provide more information about the budget deficit and answer questions from community members.
Currently, budget cuts are being proposed across many City of Tenino departments and services to deal with the deficit and balance the city’s 2025 budget.
Cuts will not happen to the Tenino Police Department after the Tenino City Council approved a motion by a vote of 3-2 to automatically reject any proposed 2025 budget that funded the police department at a lower level of funding than it had in 2024 during a council meeting on Oct. 22.
As per state law, municipalities such as Tenino are required to submit balanced budgets.
For more information on the Tenino budget issue and the Oct. 22 Tenino City Council meeting, read The Chronicle’s coverage at https://tinyurl.com/frepf647.
