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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
Page 1
City of Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget
Analysis Briefing
Prepared June 12, 2026. Primary sources: FY2027 Proposed Budget (published June 12, 2026, 317 pages), FY2025 Annual
Comprehensive Financial Report, City of Moscow adopted budgets FY2008-FY2026 (compiled dataset,
slagboom4moscow.com). Citations use the budget book's printed page numbers (printed page = PDF page minus 1). Derived
figures are marked (calculated). Every number in this briefing was verified against the source document.
1. Headlines
 Total budget: $149,292,804, up $9,762,755 (7.0%) from the FY2026 adopted budget of $139,530,049 (p. 1, 22,
24). FY2026 was amended during the year to $139,578,442 (p. 316).
 Fund balance carried forward: $74,108,620, which is 49.64% of the entire budget; $65,822,054 of it is
reserved for capital (p. 22-23). The carryforward share has climbed from 29.0% (FY2008) to 47.0% (FY2026) to
49.6% (calculated).
 General Fund: $21,214,099, up 2.9% (p. 22, 24).
 Property tax: the statutory maximum. 3% adds $243,582; the final $15,141 of foregone balance is taken,
exhausting that reserve permanently; estimated new construction adds $130,553 (p. 3, 19).
 Levy rate falls to $3.5629 per $1,000 (from 3.5733 certified in FY2026). The city estimates the tax on a $400,000
home decreases $2.85 for the year. Total city property taxes still rise $367,793 (+4.0%) to $9,456,295 (p. 19).
 Certified 2025 assessed valuation: $2,572,719,382, 3.9% above the estimate the FY2026 budget used. The
FY2027 book estimates 2026 valuation at $2,654,081,272 (p. 19).
 Health insurance up 28.6%, nearly $600,000, after the insurer initially requested 50% (p. 2). Employee
cost-of-living raise: 2.0%, below the 2.6% CPI; performance raise 2%, half the 4% the city says it would prefer.
The city's own message notes CPI rose 25.6% from 2019-2024 while city COLAs totaled 17% (p. 3).
 Eight positions eliminated in FY2024 and FY2026, including three patrol officers, stay eliminated (p. 15).
 East City Park stage: $796,000 in FY2027 Parks capital, revised from $885,000 in FY2026, plus $105,000 in 1%
for Art funds for installations at the stage and the police station (p. 17, 311).
 Budget workshop moved to July 8, 8:30 AM (from the all-day July 7 session announced in March), confirmed in
the Mayor's letter (p. 4) and the city calendar. Public hearing: Monday, August 17 (p. 1).
2. How the Extra $10 Million Is Funded
Comparing the revenue summaries of the two budgets, the +$9,762,755 decomposes exactly (calculated; FY2026
from the FY2026 adopted book, FY2027 from p. 22-23):
Source
 FY2026
 FY2027
 Change
Fund balance carried forward
 $65,551,989
 $74,108,620
 +$8,556,631
Interfund transfers (internal)
 $12,451,147
 $14,095,075
 +$1,643,928
Charges for services
 $34,194,156
 $35,888,319
 +$1,694,163
Taxes and franchise
 $12,194,857
 $12,693,598
 +$498,741
Investment earnings
 $3,843,782
 $4,047,273
 +$203,491
Intergovernmental
 $8,031,821
 $5,677,696
 -$2,354,125
Licenses, fines, misc.
 $3,262,297
 $2,782,223
 -$480,074
Total
 $139,530,049
 $149,292,804
 +$9,762,755
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
Page 2
The finding: strip out the city's own money moving between pockets (fund balance and internal transfers) and
external revenue actually falls $437,804, driven by expiring federal ARPA money (calculated). The budget is $10M
larger because the city re-appropriates its growing reserve stockpile. The budgeted ending fund balance is
$74,170,376, which is $61,756 MORE than the beginning balance: the city does not plan to net-spend any of the
reserves it appropriates (p. 23-24). New property tax authority ($258,723) is 2.6% of the increase.
3. FY2026 to FY2027: What the Deltas Reveal
The two-track city
The operating government is pinched while the utility-capital machine accelerates. General Fund +2.9%. Utility capital
funds +13.3% (+$7.3M). The same document that cuts COLA below inflation and keeps three patrol positions
eliminated grows Water Capital alone by $4.4M (+36.9%). Scarcity is administered selectively: it lands on the General
Fund and employees, never on capital accumulation. (All deltas calculated from the two books' revenue summaries.)
Fund
 FY2026
 FY2027
 Change
General Fund
 $20,619,425
 $21,214,099
 +2.9%
Streets
 $3,317,697
 $3,988,053
 +20.2%
Rec & Culture
 $3,677,226
 $3,743,522
 +1.8%
Water
 $8,812,725
 $9,758,870
 +10.7%
Sewer
 $9,868,026
 $10,534,009
 +6.7%
Sanitation
 $7,581,059
 $7,484,493
 -1.3%
Stormwater
 $1,489,532
 $1,726,893
 +15.9%
Fleet Management
 $5,416,121
 $6,935,917
 +28.1%
Information Systems
 $2,566,009
 $2,729,359
 +6.4%
Capital Projects (general)
 $19,715,912
 $17,358,500
 -12.0%
Water Capital
 $12,024,437
 $16,459,483
 +36.9%
Sewer Capital
 $29,420,331
 $32,211,830
 +9.5%
Stormwater Capital
 $597,083
 $862,338
 +44.4%
Sanitation Capital
 $12,818,197
 $12,647,293
 -1.3%
General Fund departments
Department
 FY2026
 FY2027
 Change
Fire
 $1,955,863
 $2,085,724
 +6.6%
Admin (Leg+Exec+Admin)
 $837,581
 $869,761
 +3.8%
Legal
 $585,651
 $637,346
 +8.8%
Community Development
 $2,646,847
 $2,956,879
 +11.7%
Finance
 $759,666
 $766,169
 +0.9%
Human Resources
 $445,383
 $505,037
 +13.4%
Buildings & Grounds
 $833,210
 $810,312
 -2.7%
Non-Departmental
 $5,198,290
 $4,815,985
 -7.4%
Police note: the FY2027 book restructures the GF, folding Code Enforcement ($182,020), Emergency Communications
($861,473), and Parking ($197,051) into a police subtotal of $7,759,036; police divisions alone are $6,518,492. Year-over-year
police comparisons are invalid without remapping (p. 24).
Key insights
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
Page 3
 The GF increase is exactly one health-insurance renewal. GF grew $594,674; the health increase alone is
about $600,000. The 2%/2% compensation cuts and the maintained position eliminations are what made the
arithmetic close.
 Utilities are the tax increase that gets no hearing. Enterprise operating funds grew $1,752,923 (+6.3%), which
is 6.8 times the $258,723 in new property tax authority that gets the August 17 hearing. The FY2025 ACFR shows
these utilities already run 27-35% operating margins.
 The post-Bradbury pivot is structural. Non-Departmental (mostly GF transfers out) fell 7.4%, continuing
FY2026's 22.75% cut in GF-to-capital transfers, yet capital funds still grew $5.0M. The capital machine now runs
on utility rates, accumulated balances, and investment earnings ($4,047,273 budgeted, 15.6x the new levy
authority).
 Water Capital +36.9% is the quiet story. A $4.4M one-year jump with $3.0M in new transfers in. Hypothesis to
confirm July 8: the alternate water source project ramping up (the $665,800 study was FY2026).
 Streets +20.2% (+$670,356). After 18 years of the Street fund shrinking from 5.1% to 2.4% of the total budget, the
Mayor's message leads with streets and funds $1,355,945 of roadway work. The trend reversed the year the
public criticism got loud.
 Community Development +11.7% (+$310,032), the largest GF department increase by dollars. Untested
hypothesis: state housing-compliance work (SB 1352/1354, ADU and starter home deadline February 1, 2027). A
July 8 question.
 Fleet +28.1% (+$1,519,796). The Fleet/IS funds' unexplained oscillation continues ($4.5M, $11.5M, $8.0M, now
$9.7M combined across four budgets) with no narrative explanation in any city document.
 Small tells: Legal +8.8%; HR +13.4% (HR is up 179% since FY2008); Transit +90.4% on small dollars; Finance,
which writes the budget, dead flat at +0.9%.
 The optics inversion: total levy collected rises 4.0% (+$367,793) while the per-home bill falls $2.85. Valuation
growth makes a real revenue increase invisible to each taxpayer. Expect the city to lead with the -$2.85.
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
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4. March Workshop Claims vs. the June Proposal
March 23 workshop
June 12 proposed budget
2.6% COLA + 3% performance assumed
Cut to 2.0% + 2.0% (p. 3)
Health renewal 'likely much higher' (117-118% loss ratio)
Insurer asked +50%; negotiated to +28.6%, ~$600K (p. 2)
$50-80K General Fund gap projected
Balanced via the comp cuts and maintained eliminations
'7 positions frozen since 2023'
Framed as eliminated: 6 in FY2024 + 2 in FY2026; reductions
maintained (p. 15)
Dependent coverage marching toward 80%
65% to 70%; family-plan employees still pay ~$55/month more
(p. 2-3)
July 7 all-day workshop
July 8, 8:30 AM (p. 4)
Foregone: last $15K remaining
Taken in full; reserve exhausted permanently (p. 3, 19)
5. ESG / Electrification Spending Scan
All 317 pages were scanned for 22 terms: electric vehicle, EV, charging station, charger, solar, photovoltaic, battery,
heat pump, electrification, renewable, climate action, sustainability, carbon, emissions, greenhouse, diversity, equity,
inclusion, DEI, e-bike, hybrid, and related variants. Identifiable line items:
Item
 Amount
Location
Installing EV Charging Stations and Gateways (City Shop)
 $10,000
Fleet fund R&M; Buildings, p. 263
EV Tools (minor equipment)
 $2,500
Fleet commodities, p. 264
Sustainable Environment Commission support
 $500
GF Non-Departmental, p. 139
EV technician training (one item in a $6,000 training line)
 n/a
Fleet professional development, p. 262
Hard ESG-flagged dollars: $13,000, or 0.009% of the budget (calculated). Adjacent but plausibly aquifer-driven
rather than ESG-political: the Water Conservation Program at $68,500 (rebates $42,000; educational and
sustainability materials $10,000; Wisescape demonstrations $16,500; p. 214) and a Sustainability Programs
Coordinator position cost-shared 40% across the four utility funds, salary not separately stated (p. 208, 221).
Zero occurrences anywhere in the document: solar, photovoltaic, renewable, battery storage, heat pump,
electrification, e-bike, climate action, greenhouse, DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. No electric vehicle purchases; the
only vehicle line found states 'No planned purchases FY2027.' Recurring boilerplate with no dollars attached: the
EcoDriver Program paragraph on ~20 departments' fuel lines and Fleet's 'zero emissions / Alternate Fuel Transition
Plan' mission text (p. 56). Method caveat: department pages were keyword-scanned, not read line by line; an item
described without these terms would not be caught.
6. Budget Padding Micro-Case: Dept 110 Overtime
Question: 'We budgeted $15K in overtime for dept 110. Did we spend it?' Dept 110 is General Buildings & Grounds,
GL 101-110-510-19 (p. 126). The line covers seven-day on-call from May 1 to September 30 plus winter snow
removal.
Column
 Amount
FY2027 proposed
 $15,000
FY2026 original budget
 $15,000
FY2025 actual (2024-25 Activity)
 $7,476
FY2024 actual (2023-24 Activity)
 $8,029
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
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The department spent 49.8% of the budget in FY2025 and 53.5% in FY2024, and the city re-budgets the full $15,000
anyway. This is a micro-example of the citywide pattern the FY2025 ACFR confirms: payroll ran $1.28M under budget
while the public narrative was scarcity. Column mapping was anchor-tested: the dept 110 totals row ($810,312)
matches the independently verified FY2027 proposed total from the Expenditure Summary, fixing proposed as the
first value and actuals as the last two.
7. Department Requests vs. the Mayor's Proposal
An external line-item analysis (separate Claude instance) found the proposed budget matches department requests
on 1,006 of 1,020 GL lines (98.6%), with 14 differences. Five of the 14 were spot-verified directly against the
document and all five match exactly:
 Pool miscellaneous services: requested $74,581, proposed $33,000 (p. 176)
 Stormwater Development Participation: requested $39,725, proposed $10,000 (p. 237)
 Drug Investigation Expense: requested $168, proposed $17,000 (p. 101). Note: sits opposite a reimbursement
revenue line ($8,274 actual FY2025, p. 72); substantially offset pass-through.
 Water Dept Buildings (capital): requested $106,627, proposed $147,126 (p. 292)
 Facilities Improvements: requested $26,475, proposed $43,700 (p. 131)
Unverified: the 1,020 line count (raw GL-number count here is 1,166, but that includes revenue GLs and narrative
cross-references) and the 270 reduced / 461 increased / 289 unchanged split. Interpretive caution: a 98.6% match
rate does not show a 'department-driven, not top-down' budget. Requests were prepared inside top-down constraints:
budgets due to the City Administrator April 10, centrally set COLA and performance rates, and the 20% discretionary
cut baseline made permanent two years ago. The discipline happened upstream of the request stage. Moscow also
has no city manager; the Mayor proposes.
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
Page 6
8. The FY2025 ACFR Counter-Narrative (verified June 11)
Every number below was re-verified character-for-character against the audited FY2025 Annual Comprehensive
Financial Report. This is the counter-document to the structural-deficit framing for the August 17 hearing.
 Spending ran $2.07M (13.1%) under budget. GF expenditures $13,795,863 actual vs $15,867,173 appropriated;
payroll alone ran $1.28M under ($333K general government + $947K public safety) the same year council was
told positions were frozen for lack of money (ACFR p. 81, 39).
 The budget shows the GF ending at $0; the audited balance is $6,722,703, including $5.17M committed
working capital, about 4.5 months of operating expenditures (calculated; p. 46, 81). The oft-cited 'unassigned
$348,893' is mostly receivables collected within 60 days (p. 36).
 Total governmental fund balance grew $3.8M (+14.6%) to $29.9M; the Capital Projects Fund alone grew 31%
(p. 48).
 Every enterprise fund got richer. Sewer +$4.6M to $29,550,020, per the city's own MD&A; 'due mainly to
amounts budgeted for capital outlay that were not incurred' (p. 37). Operating margins: Water 34.7%, Sewer
33.1%, Stormwater 27.5% (p. 51). Sewer debt coverage: 28.6x (p. 123).
 Citywide net position rose $21,061,718 (+11.0%) to $211,881,336 (p. 34). The PERSI pension liability fell
39.8% to $5,675,293, now 91% funded (p. 85).
 $40,816,142 in net transfers flowed from ratepayer (enterprise) funds to governmental activities
FY2016-FY2024 ($3.3M-$6.5M every year), collapsing to $251,351 in FY2025 after the Bradbury-driven
reclassification (ACFR statistical section, p. 111).
 The MD&A; contains no structural-deficit language anywhere. The Finance Director certifies 'sound financial
management' (p. 33).
Honest caveats: the city's forward gap claim concerns next-year operating margin and can technically coexist with growing
reserves. Reported investment earnings include GASB 31 fair-value swings (FY2022 was negative $438,315), so budget-vs-actual
comparisons on that line overstate conservatism. One-time items in FY2025: $2.67M ARPA and a $3.4M general government
expense normalization off an FY2024 spike.
9. Letter to the Editor No. 6 (draft, June 12)
Full 15-point source documentation accompanies the draft at: H:\repos\slagboom4moscow\FY2027 Budget FIles\Letter 6 - Draft
and Sources.txt. About 285 words.
The mayor's own budget message makes the case
Moscow's proposed FY2027 budget came out June 12. Mayor Hailey Lewis opens it by naming the city's highest-priority
issues, in her own words: City Shop "inefficiencies and safety concerns," an "inability to recruit sufficient staff to perform
essential functions," "inadequate funding to properly maintain city streets," and a "deteriorating downtown streetscape
and infrastructure."
To meet those priorities, she proposes the maximum property tax increase Idaho law allows: the statutory 3% plus the
city's remaining foregone balance of $15,141. That reserve is now spent forever. And the 3% increase yields just
$243,582 in new revenue (budget, p. 3).
Turn to page 311 of the same document. There sits the East City Park stage: $796,000, with another $105,000 in 1% for
Art funds split between stage and police station installations. The stage alone costs three times all the new property tax
revenue the maximum increase will generate.
Meanwhile the people who deliver city services absorb the squeeze. Health insurance costs jump 28.6%, nearly
$600,000. The cost-of-living raise is 2%, below inflation, after a 2019 to 2024 stretch where prices rose 25.6% and city
raises totaled 17%. Eight eliminated positions, including three patrol officers, stay eliminated. All of it is in the budget
message, pages 2-3.
Downtown, a stated priority, receives $200,000 for design work only. The entire roadway improvement program is $1.36
million. The stage equals more than half of it.
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Moscow FY2027 Proposed Budget Analysis Briefing  |  June 12, 2026
Page 7
When a budget declares streets, staffing, and downtown the priorities, the spending should look like it. This one funds a
stage.
The council workshop is July 8. The public hearing is August 17. Write your councilors today: council@ci.moscow.id.us.
John Slagboom, Moscow
Drafting decisions: the -$2.85 per-home figure was deliberately omitted (invites a 'taxes went down' rebuttal; the counter is the levy
total rising 4.0% to $9,456,295, p. 19). The $885K-to-$796K change was held back for the stage page rather than muddying the
letter.
10. Process Calendar and Recommended Actions
Date
Event
June 12 (done)
Proposed budget published; tracker, dashboard, and stage page updated and deployed same
day
July 8, 8:30-9:30 AM
Council budget workshop (moved from July 7). Attend and record.
Monday, August 17
Public hearing; formal comment, last chance before the vote
September 14, 5 PM
Workshop 4: strategic plan reset
Questions worth asking July 8
 What is the $4.4M Water Capital increase for? Is the alternate water source being pre-funded?
 Which part of Community Development's +$310K implements the state housing mandates due February 1, 2027?
 What explains the Fleet fund's $1.5M (+28%) jump, and the four-year Fleet/IS oscillation?
 Where is the staffing schedule? The proposed book publishes no FTE table.
 The CIP escalator: the administration acknowledged in March it should be 8-10%, not 3%. Which rate does this
CIP use? (Unresolved; no escalator language found in the book.)
 Why re-budget $15,000 in B&G; overtime against $7,500-8,000 of actual spend two years running, and how much
of the citywide $1.28M payroll underspend recurs in this proposal?
11. Methodology and Limits
 Extraction: all 317 pages to text (PyMuPDF). Six pages read in full (budget message p. 2-4, levy table p. 19,
revenue summary p. 22, expenditure summary p. 24); the rest covered by targeted keyword sweeps.
 Verification: both summary tables reconcile to $149,292,804 across all columns. The $10M decomposition
reconciles to the dollar. Detail-table column mapping was anchor-tested against an independently verified total.
 Updated and deployed June 12: slagboom4moscow.com dashboard (FY2027 proposed column on all 27 data
arrays, KPI row, proposed-data banner), /budget-2027/ tracker (coverage section, hosted PDF, July 8 fix), /stage/
($796K update). Commits 5a56fb9, d54a824.
 Not analyzed: ~300 department detail pages line-by-line; the CIP section; enterprise rate schedules (calculator
update deferred until the fee resolution); no FTE schedule exists in the book's text layer. FY2026 actuals do not
exist yet (year ends September 30, 2026).
 Known data flags: two legacy analysis files in H:\Moscow_Transparency\03_Research_Analysis conflict with the
audited dashboard dataset (FY2010 off $20.9M; FY2008 off $8.3M) and are quarantined pending reconciliation.
An election-year levy correlation was tested and is null; do not claim it.
 Source files: budget PDF at C:\Users\John\Downloads\FY2027_Budget_PROPOSED_use for viewing.pdf (hosted
at slagboom4moscow.com/budget-2027/docs/fy2027-proposed-budget.pdf); extracted text at
C:\Users\John\Downloads\fy2027_draft_text.txt; ACFR at H:\repos\slagboom4moscow\FY2025 Annual
Comprehensive Financial Report.pdf.