Members of the Vader City Council convened Nov. 5 for their first regular meeting of the month.
Among agenda items discussed included the city’s 2026 preliminary budget, which councilors and Vader Mayor Joe Schey workshopped during the meeting.
According to the draft budget available on the city’s website, the beginning fund balance for 2026 is projected at $627,582 — with revenues projected at $1,342,270 and expenditures projected at $1,604,723, leaving an ending budget balance estimated at $365,128.
Vader City Councilor Nicole Hansen also announced she had created a 2026 property tax calculator for residents interested in seeing what their property tax rate specific to the City of Vader would be at different proposed levy lift rates.
The calculator, along with the 2026 draft budget, are available on the city’s website at https://www.vaderwa.org/city-departments/city-budget--financials.
It was also announced that LeMay was increasing fees for solid waste disposal, and councilors discussed going back to beginning meetings with an official prayer.
At the beginning of the meeting, Schey announced the City of Vader had been awarded the 2025 Risk Management Achievement Award from the Association of Washington Cities Risk Management Service Agency after winning it in 2024 as well.
“We were awarded this year for our efforts in proactively managing risk and improving safety,” Schey said.
LeMay rates and prayer discussion
The waste disposal fee increase was not a matter the council had any voting power on, Schey explained.
“Your garbage contractor can raise rates based on whatever’s in the contract, and they’re raising it because of inflation-related reasons,” Schey said. “... The tipping fees at Lewis County Solid Waste are going up, so LeMay has to pass that on to their customers.”
Vader City Councilor Jason Dailey said the estimated rate increase expected to hit customers was “a little over a dollar,” but could be as high as $2.11, according to city staff.
As for the matter of official prayer during meetings, discussion was also held during last month’s council meetings, but councilors decided to hold off voting on the matter until they were all present in-person for the meeting.
During this month’s first meeting, most of the councilors reiterated their stances on the matter they expressed last month, both for and against holding official prayers — with Dailey still opposing it and Vader City Councilors Michael Ferguson and Mike Parsons supporting it.
While Vader City Councilor John Hurt initially supported holding official prayers last month, citing it being done in the U.S. Congress, he took a more neutral stance after talking to a city manager and his brother-in-law who serves on a city council in Oregon.
“They don’t think it’s helpful. I have my own opinions on it, but talking to them, they say the Pledge of Allegiance, that’s all they do. Then they get into what they need to do, and that’s the city business,” Hurt said. “... This is a big topic for the council, and I think if it’s not 100% agreed on, then we shouldn’t have it whatsoever.”
While present for the Nov. 5 meeting, Ferguson was not present in-person and attended virtually. The matter was tabled again to the council’s next meeting scheduled for Nov. 19.
Budget workshop
Pertaining specifically to the budget, the topic of code enforcement — which councilors had discussed possibly outsourcing at meetings earlier this year, as previously reported by The Chronicle — was a main point of discussion during the workshop.
During their regular meetings last month, councilors considered contracting with a third party like 4LEAF, Inc., to handle code enforcement in Vader.
City staff have had issues with enforcement in the past, and some find it uncomfortable as they are often dealing with their neighbors in the small South Lewis County community. Last month in the neighboring community of Toledo, tensions over city staff-conducted code enforcement boiled over during the Oct. 20 Toledo City Council meeting, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
In Vader, while city staff were not opposed to the idea of contracting code enforcement out to a third party, they told the council they would be fine with waiting for another year and still handling code enforcement themselves to allow for the money to be used elsewhere in the budget.
“The quotes that we’ve got (for code enforcement) range between — depending on the number of hours that we want — between $12,000 and $24,000 a year,” Schey said.
Additionally, if a resident contests a code enforcement fine, the city will have to pay court and attorney fees. Discussion was also held concerning the possibility of urban growth area annexation, which could help generate more revenue for the city budget.
As for the property tax levy itself, the city’s current tax levy rate is just over $1.01 per $1,000 with the 2025 assessed value of all property within city limits at $82,274,754 — putting the 2025 levy amount at $83,496.76.
Schey stated in previous meetings the city had a lot of built up banked capacity to raise the levy lid as for years, councils have continuously voted against raising it.
While no outright proposal to raise the levy by any amount was made during the meeting, Dailey said he wouldn’t oppose it with city staff concerned about ongoing inflation.
“This time last year, I wanted to raise taxes some because it funds our city. Last year, we were very close to having a deficit again,” Dailey said. “I remember and recall that we waited because we wanted to see what was going to happen after things happened in the (2024) election.”
He stated the worry was the city would raise the levy rate unnecessarily as some expected the inflation rate to go down. Throughout 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index’s inflation rate has remained positive, with its lowest mark being 2.3% in April.
“You guys pretty much agreed to it, if (prices) don’t go down, then we’re going to have to do it, because that’s what funds our city. Three percent raises every year for our employees, we just don’t have the money anymore to do it when we get no (levy rate) percentage raises every year for the city,” Dailey added.
The Vader City Council meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in Vader City Hall, located at 317 Eighth St. in Vader.
