The city of Washougal will not add funding for new firefighters in its 2019 budget.
Washougal City Administrator David Scott said Tuesday the city simply cannot afford it.
The decision puts a damper on a recent Camas proposal to add four firefighters to the Camas-Washougal Fire Department (CWFD) in 2019.
The hiring of four new firefighters was projected to cost Camas, which pays 60 percent of the CWFD costs, about $251,000 and Washougal about $168,000 in 2019.
Scott said the city of Washougal’s preliminary budget for 2019 includes no increases for supplies and services in the general fund departments.
“That is like a budget cut,” he said. “The cost of supplies and services goes up, because of inflationary pressures. We have less buying power for our general fund programs.”