Yakima, Washington— At Monday’s regular meeting, the council continued to review the preliminary 2025-2026 budget. In those discussions they talked about what options the city can take to help increase revenue.

“Throughout our sessions, I have been imploring us not to focus on balancing our needs, but on our healthy things, because there are quite a few situations that we can correct and they may not explode in the fund’s overall income. but it will get us to the state we should operate from,” said City of Yakima Finance and Budget Director Viren Mayani.

There are about 14 different options the council can take. For some, the council did not approve them, such as an EMS tax. But about others about which the council requested more information.

“I would like to propose to direct staff that they introduce an ordinance related to impact fees, comparable to union gaps,” said Councilman Reedy Berg.

Not all council members agreed with these options and expressed concerns.

“We have to look at the way we carry out this process. It has become too expensive and I agree that we need that protection, but we have to find a cheaper way to do it. We can’t just ask for more money every time we run into a problem, we have to look for ways that we can actually solve the problem,” said Councilman Rick Glenn.

The council decided to continue the discussion and receive more public comments on the budget at a later date.

“I think this community is going to have to answer for what priority they want us to fund,” said Vice Mayor Matt Brown.