Langley is at a critical inflection point, Mayor Kennedy Horstman informed the city council this week.

More financial issues came to light recently, including a $100,000 increase next year in expenses.

Horstman has spent her past year in office tidying up the city’s budget, uncovering more information about where things went astray fiscally.

During the council’s special meeting on Monday, Horstman said liability insurance, employee wages and benefits have all increased in cost for 2025. That amounts to $45,340 for liability insurance, $24,500 for law enforcement and $30,000 for employee benefits in the new year.

Horstman continued to hammer home the gravity of the city’s financial state.

“This isn’t just a case of the people before didn’t do a good job … this is a challenge that all municipalities are facing, and unfortunately, we’re facing it later than others because we’ve had that lack of visibility,” she said.

Langley currently can’t afford a city administrator, let alone a mayor, Horstman said. The city council previously made changes to Langley’s operational structure, lowering the mayor’s salary from $55,000 to $12,000 and hiring a city administrator to do the bulk of the day-to-day work; the city administrator resigned earlier this year and hasn’t been replaced. Those responsibilities have since fallen on Horstman, with no extra pay, which is a liability.

At the rate the city is going, Horstman said, Langley could reach 2026 and not have the money to pay the electricity for streetlights.

Fortunately, expenses are not expected to exceed revenues in 2024. But the city must look to other areas to increase revenue. A public safety sales tax on the ballot will provide an additional $51,000 annually if approved by voters next week.

“We need to dig in on the transportation benefit district, especially with regards to the street fund,” Horstman said. “We need to consider a levy lid lift and we need to be serious about investigating the possibility of liquidating some of our assets, particularly our real estate assets, and investing the proceeds.”

Currently, the city owns and charges rent for the visitor center where the Langley Chamber of Commerce is located and Callahan’s Firehouse.

The mayor also suggested some cost-saving measures, like taking a “flat amount” approach to employee health benefits for new hires in 2025. Right now, the city covers 95% of health benefits, regardless of the price, and as Horstman pointed out, health care costs have only increased over the last decade.