As the city of Issaquah continues to run full steam ahead to address transportation and other infrastructure, the municipal government’s Public Works and Engineering department will now add further engineering positions.

The city council on Tuesday signed off on an initiative to staff two additional full-time senior engineers and upgrade an existing environmental associate to full time.

The positions will cost more than $187,000 for salaries, benefits and equipment. That amount was not budgeted for 2015, but the need for staff has become pressing, Deputy City Administrator Emily Moon said. Moon presented the bill to council on behalf of the department.

In recent years, the public works department has had to shift its workload to other departments and rely on outside consultants, Moon said.

She said city administrators made the shifts knowing it could need additional staff at some time in the future.

“We’re at that point now,” Moon said.

Three factors have made the additional staff vital, she said: The city council’s increased focus on transportation policy; requests from

businesses and citizens to put more resources into mobility; and the need to meet federal Environmental Protection Agency requirements for the city’s water pollutant discharge permit.

All cities that collect stormwater in sewers and discharge it to other bodies of water are required by the Clean Water Act to have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. Issaquah has a Phase II permit, putting it on the hook for a Stormwater Management Program that includes public outreach and involvement, detection and elimination of illicit discharge, runoff control at construction sites and pollution prevention.

The environmental associate responsible for those duties will be upgraded to full time, from three-quarters of full time.

The positions that will open up include two full-time senior engineers, one to be recruited as soon as possible and another in the last three months of 2015. Both positions would be responsible for capital project management and design and construction. However, one would be additionally focused on transportation and the other on utilities.

Councilmember Nina Milligan questioned whether the city budget would be able to handle the new costs, in terms of salary and eventual severance.

Moon said some of the costs would come out of capital funds where consulting contracts had been factored in. Severance would be trickier to calculate. But she added that the utilities engineer, particularly, would result in cost savings for the city down the line.

Some councilmembers were unsure about the potential for savings.

“That gives me pause and it still does,” Councilmember Eileen Barber said.

The council amended the proposal for a committee to examine savings by the end of the year.

Councilmember Stacy Goodman believed the new engineers would fill an important role in the city’s future.

“There’s something tougher than the strain on our budget and that’s the strain on our roads,” she said.