In a unanimous decision at its June 15 meeting, the Mercer Island City Council voted against placing a Youth and Family Services (YFS) levy on the November election ballot.

YFS services are vital to the community, but it’s not the right time for a levy, council said.

If the levy lid lift for YFS funding were to have been included on the ballot and gained voter approval, the city would have been permitted to increase its regular property tax levy above the 101% limit from one year to the immediately following year, according to one of the presentation pages.

On not including the levy on the ballot, councilmember Lisa Anderl said, “I feel it is the wrong time to ask the public for more money, particularly when we have significant additional financial resources available to us with ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act).”

The single-year levy lid lift option presented to council featured a page to determine which YFS programs would be funded and the amount of the funding gap.

The total funding cost sat at $1,023,000 with a mixture of stabilizing, restoring and data actions in such areas as the school-based counseling program, assistant to full-time programs, family and geriatric counselor, senior needs assessment and three more.

To kick off the YFS levy discussion at the meeting, councilmember David Rosenbaum thanked the city staff for diligently preparing the proposed levy presentation package before putting forth a motion to direct staff to withhold further action on the levy for the 2021 election.

Rosenbaum added that he’d like staff to return to the council with a recommendation to maintain current YFS service levels and identify potential funding alternatives in several spots of the levy package. Anderl seconded the motion.

“I honestly feel, and I hear this from everyone in the community, that these are really important programs in the community. I think stabilizing what we currently have is a big piece of it and making up for that lost revenue,” said Rosenbaum, adding that he thinks council owes it to residents to explore options for funding the restoration of programs, especially critical counselors for children coming out of challenging times during the pandemic.

Anderl and other councilmembers echoed Rosenbaum’s sentiment about how counselors are essential to the community.

Councilmember Salim Nice brought the Mercer Island Thrift Shop into play, noting that with expanded hours on the horizon, it’s a golden opportunity to see if the shop can fully fund the YFS services.

“Our focus should really be on that Thrift Shop, getting it up and running fully once the state opens up and trying to get north of $2 million in revenue and keep the expenses low,” he said.

Mayor Benson Wong said that some of the city’s ARPA money might be a source of funding for YFS. As they examine the issue further, he would prefer to have more permanent funding — not one-time money with the proposed levy — go toward the crucial counseling services.