The Twisp Town Council has approved a 2023 budget totaling $8.611 million, including $1.647 million for the general fund as well as departmental spending for water, sewer, streets, debt service and the Wagner Memorial Pool.
The budget was adopted at last week’s meeting after a public hearing that drew no comments.
In other business, Mayor Soo Ing-Moody said an interim police chief will be named after the first of the year, when current Chief Paul Budrow assumes office as the newly elected Okanogan County sheriff. The town’s public safety committee will coordinate the effort to recruit and hire a new chief. The police department has two other full-time officers, Ty Sheehan and Stephen Purtell.
It was a night for routine business including annual contract or agreement extensions. The council:
• renewed a contract agreement with Town Planner Kurt Danison of Okanogan-based Highland Associates for an average of four hours a week of services, at an hourly rate of $95. Twisp resident Isabel Spohn asked if, given the anticipated growth in Twisp based on several proposed housing projects, four hours a week is enough. Ing-Moody said the town will adjust Danison’s hours as necessary.
• renewed the town’s agreement with Okanogan County Fire District 6 to provide fire protection services in the town through 2023, at the same annual rate of $60,000. The town and fire district are working out the details of a pre-annexation agreement in anticipation of a ballot measure next year that will ask town and district residents to approve Twisp’s annexation to District 6. If that annexation is approved, the fire protection agreement would remain in place until the district began taxing town residents in 2024.
• renewed a rental agreement with the Methow Valley Community Center for the Twisp library space at the center, at a rate of $11,962 annually. Operating costs of the library are paid by the NCW Libraries district.
• adopted an agreement with the Twisp Chamber of Commerce to provide tourism promotional activities. The council earlier agreed to a chamber request to provide $30,000 in 2023 for such activities, supported by hotel-motel occupancy taxes the town collects.
• renewed an agreement with the Okanogan County Transit Authority to provide parking areas for the authority’s TranGO buses.
• accepted a $375,109 grant from the Washington Transportation Improvement Board to pay for overlay projects on several town streets, including Lincoln Street and Fourth and Fifth avenues.
• adopted a new fee schedule for town services that includes 5.5% increase in water and sewer rates.
• updated the town staff salary schedule to reflect the state’s minimum wage and other changes.
