The major changes within the Oak Harbor 2025-2026 biennial budget include an increase in the cost of water and more funds allocated to looming projects such as upgrading the marina.

“This year’s a bit more complicated, because we’re setting up funding to take care of what we know about upcoming costs which we haven’t had before,” Councilmember Jim Woessner said at a council meeting Tuesday.

The total budget for next year is over $167 million, which appears to be a 9.4% increase from this year. However, once fund transfer and interfund allocation costs are removed, the actual operation funds are a decrease of 0.5% from the previous budget, said David Goldman, deputy city administrator.

The budget was adopted unanimously.

Mayor Ronnie Wright emphasized the value of staff, grant funding for capital projects, reduced utility rates and the priority list approved by the city council.

The Parks and Recreation department will receive an additional $100,000 next year for program start-up costs. In addition, the department requested camp counselors, sports and recreation staff.

Anacortes will charge Oak Harbor $200,000 more for water, a 26% increase from the previous budget.

“We’re definitely going to be talking about water next year,” Goldman said.

The budget breaks down to 25% for the general fund, 22% for internal services such as public works, 42% for enterprise funds such as utilities, 8% for special revenue and 3% for capital projects.

Another major difference is in the $63 million set aside for the capital plan. Right now, the marina cost is 32% of the funds for these projects to prepare for the overdue upgrades.

Woessner noted the improvements Goldman’s made to the budget process, including greater discussion among department heads and deeper dives into line items.

“As a guy who’s going through this for the seventh time, it doesn’t get any easier, but it does get easier,” he said.