The City of Renton Emergency Management division is currently monitoring the atmospheric river event and potential impact to the Cedar River and surrounding low-lying areas. Text updates are available through Alert Renton for emergency notifications. Monitoring updates will be posted to rentonwa.gov/emergencyinfo and shared on city social channels as available.
The city is responsible for building and maintaining roads, providing police protection and emergency management services, as well as maintaining parks, open spaces, and recreational centers. Included in the city’s biennial budget is the six-year capital improvement plan, which identifies the capital needs, prioritization, timing, and funding sources of the general government.
The budget serves as the primary policy document for prioritizing and planning the city’s service levels and addressing capital needs. The city uses a “budgeting for outcomes” approach to building the budget, referred to as Renton Results. Using Renton Results, the budget is built around the city’s six key service areas which are directly tied to the council adopted business plan.
The city is committed to fiscal responsibility while working to meet the evolving needs of our residents. This video was created to provide further clarity on the city's budget and budget process in order to meet these needs.
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The City of Renton's development of the biennial budget occurs every two years from February through October. The mayor and city council hold a strategic planning retreat to review the city's current service levels and projected revenues into the new biennium to determine if significant budget changes need to be made. City departments prepare and submit budget proposals with estimates for providing existing service levels for each year in the biennium, as well as capital improvement program (CIP) budgets and requests for new programs they would like the mayor to consider.
The mayor must provide a proposed biennial budget to city council no later than the first Monday of October. City Council conducts public hearings and holds open committee meetings to discuss budget requests and amendments. Once public hearings have been held, the deliberative process is complete, and council has made their changes, city council will adopt the budget ordinance in November.
2025-2026 budget
Washington state law requires that cities must adopt a balanced budget prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. The adopted budget appropriates funds and establishes legal expenditure limits for the upcoming fiscal year. State law also allows for the adoption of biennial budgets provided the city council also adopts a second ordinance for a mid-biennial review and modification prior to the end of the first year in the fiscal biennium. In 2011, the City of Renton moved from an annual budget to a biennial budget with mid-biennial review.
The focus of the 2025-2026 budget is to increase funding dedicated to public safety and human services; provide continued funding of new and ongoing maintenance and improvements to the city's infrastructure; fund planned increases in reserves for replacements (e.g. information technology and facilities funds); and increase staffing to align internal service resources in support of accomplishing department objectives.
View the 2025-2026 adopted budget
Every two years, the city's preliminary budget is carefully reviewed through a series of public meetings held by the Committee of the Whole. During these sessions:
View the 2025-2026 budget overview document
Budget overview(PDF, 2MB)
The 2024 survey was Renton's first city-wide budget survey. The objectives were to gain knowledge of residents' perceptions about the city, understand community priorities and expectations regarding city services, and support decision making for the upcoming budget process.
The survey addressed the following topics:
View the 2025-2026 budget survey results
2024 budget survey(PDF, 3MB)
Budget presentations
Public hearings and budget presentations are a vital component of the budget process. The mayor provides a proposed budget to council, after which council conducts public hearings. During the same time frame, department representatives attend Committee of the Whole open sessions to present their department's accomplishments and discuss their budget proposal requests. This process ensures transparency, allows for community input, and helps align resources with the city's priorities.
The mayor must provide a proposed biennial budget to council no later than the first Monday of October. View Mayor Pavone's 2025-2026 budget presentation to the Committee of the Whole on October 7, 2024.
Video - Mayor Pavone's presentation
Representatives from the Parks & Recreation, Police, and Public Works departments presented their accomplishments and budget proposals to the Committee of the Whole. View the department presentations from October 14, 2024.
Video - 10.14.24 department presentations
Representatives from the Community & Economic Development, City Attorney, Municipal Court, Executive Services, Finance, and Human Resources departments presented their accomplishments and budget proposals to the Committee of the Whole. View the department presentations from October 21, 2024.
Video - 10.21.24 department presentations
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Access city budget documents from previous years. In 2011, the City of Renton moved from an annual budget to a biennial budget with mid-biennial review.
View prior budgets