MONTESANO — How thin can a department’s budget get before the department ceases to exist? That was the sentiment of Grays Harbor County department heads at the county’s budget meeting on Feb. 25.
All three commissioners attended the special meeting, as did elected and appointed department heads working toward easing the county’s deficit.
“I don’t know that any of us here are providing services beyond what we are mandated by statute to do,” county Treasurer Ron Strabbing said. “You’ve got to protect the core services that people expect from county government.”
Strabbing suggested reviewing programs that are not mandated as a way to save funds, including the Washington State University Extension Office.
“It’s a couple hundred thousand dollars a year that is discretionary at the commissioners’ option,” he said. “The other stuff that’s fluff is nice, but if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. If we’re driving a Ford, we’ve got to be using a Ford budget and not a Cadillac budget.”
Commission Chairman Wes Cormier began the workshop with a spreadsheet outlining his suggested cuts. The current expected deficit for 2015 is $2.5 million, and Cormier’s suggested cuts would reduce that by about $621,000, leaving a hole of more than $1.8 million dollars. The department heads were asked to get the reduction up to at least $700,000. And while it may seem like a minimal respite, Cormier says the $700,000 reduction in the deficit would allow the county to meet an important budget benchmark by keeping the reserve fund at the county-mandated 16 percent.
Cormier’s cuts include more than $193,000 in the prosecutor’s office through the reduction of non-allocated funds and attrition, and more than $146,000 from the Sheriff’s Department budget. Planning and building would be cut $56,000 through attrition by not filling a position that will become vacant in April, and the juvenile facility could save $55,000 through attrition of a secretary position, Cormier’s spreadsheet noted. Cormier also suggested cutting $40,000 from the Assessor’s Office by encouraging an early retirement with added benefits.
A suggested 5 percent cut of county funds to Public Health and Social Services, saving $25,000, was not completely rejected by the department’s Director Joan Brewster, but she did say that cuts have already hit the department hard in the past.
“We are constantly in the game of looking for money to address social and health issues in the community, and it’s pretty hard to get a step ahead when every time we bring in a dollar, we are losing more dollars,” Brewster said. “Between 2008 and 2012, we’ve lost 47 percent of our county contribution. We’re trying to keep our nose just above the water line.”
Brewster also cautioned commissioners that the cut could diminish outside grant funding in the future.
“When we lose the county contribution, we lose the ability to take that dollar and leverage the next dollar from the state,” Brewster said. “We can take the cut, we may jeopardize a grant and we’ll squeeze it and make it happen, but it will not put us in any more of a stable position.”
Brewster also updated the other department heads on changes that could be coming to her department, changes that could either be beneficial or detrimental to the county’s financial situation, she said.
“During the coming year we will make a major change to mental health and chemical dependency, and it could mean shrinking a $14 million budget down to a $4 million budget or less,” Brewster said. “They’ll become part of a larger agency. One concern I have is that we may be able to structure it so the funding still comes through the county to go to support a larger five-county mental health agency, and we’ll all benefit from the administrative charges on those dollars. But if the dollars go directly into the five-county agency and skips our county, then there will be a huge loss for our administrative capacity.”
Whether good or bad news to county finances — currently unclear — mental health and chemical dependency services still will be available in the county, but they’ll be through another agency, Brewster said.
Cormier also noted a $20,000 reduction for the commissioners’ office budget. His was the only presentation prepared for the meeting. Commissioner Vickie Raines was prepared with written suggestions as talking points.
“I was surprised by how similar our (her and Cormier’s) suggestions were — we hadn’t seen each other’s suggestions until the meeting,” Raines said.
Some of Raines suggestions included revisiting spending for vehicles for the Sheriff’s Office, and shifting membership dues payments for the Council of Governments and Greater Grays Harbor Inc. (totaling more than $22,000) to a fund other than the thinned general fund.
None of the suggestions were meant to be steadfast cuts, the commissioners agreed.
“Instead of saying this is what you have to do, we’re looking for options,” Raines said. “If someone can trim $8,000, that’s great, or $20,000 here. It is the old adage of doing more with less, and we continue to ask that.”
Commissioner Frank Gordon said he did not have suggestions he was ready to share publicly as of Wednesday.
“I’m working on savings and I’ll bring them forward when they’re ready,” Gordon said after the workshop.
Imbalance
While the department heads were brought together to discuss suggested cuts for their departments, some departments saw an imbalance in cuts and spending between departments throughout the general fund.
“We went through this in 2008-09, and we all locked arms and saved a lot of money over the course of about three or four years,” Strabbing said. “When I got here, the criminal justice system was about 60 percent of the county general fund, now it’s 70 plus. At some point, it’s going to squeeze the other administrative offices out. Our offices (treasurer, auditor and assessor) are necessary to have this county, and you can’t have a county without our offices.”
Gordon says the problem isn’t bloated departments, it’s unfunded mandates (services required by the state but paid for with county funds).
“The monster in the room we have no control over is there are so many unfunded mandates to public safety that Katie (Prosecutor Katie Svoboda) and Rick (Sheriff Rick Scott) have no control over it,” Gordon said. “You got to have more defense lawyers, you’ve got to have all these different things for the courts, and that’s always going to be a kicker in the pie. You say at one time it was 60 percent and now it’s 70, but going to other county meetings, we’re lower than the rest of the state — most of the rest of the state has 75 percent public safety costs. That’s unbelievable.”
Raines steered the conversation back to teamwork, saying the workshop was meant for communication, not blame.
“My intention of budgeting and coming together was not to point fingers,” Raines said. “Truthfully, you can say that the treasurer, auditor and assessor bring in money, and the sheriff’s office brings in very little money, but they spend a lot of money, and that’s just the way it is. You have a budget set up, and you wish your mortgage was the same as your PUD bill, but it is what it is.”
Commissioners
All three commissioners expressed their frustrations with the budget situation. Raines, newly elected in November, inherited the deficit.
“I’m a little frustrated and taken aback a bit to walk in to a new position where the public has elected me on Jan. 1 to a $2 million hole in the budget,” Raines said. “I’m concerned about how do we make this number and the savings a little better to get us (over) the hump. I don’t care where it comes from … we have a hole to cover.”
And while the general frustration was toward the budget, the commissioners each expressed frustration with each other, with Raines and Cormier speaking out against Gordon.
Gordon had disseminated a memo last month to department heads and the media calling for a 10 percent cut across the general fund to all departments or every department scaling back to a four-day work week. Raines and Cormier were made aware of the memo only after it was hand-delivered by Gordon.
And while Gordon may be calling for a tightening of the county purse strings, Cormier insinuated Gordon’s actions say otherwise.
“Monday was the first time in two years that you (Gordon) voted against a new hire,” Cormier said. “I’ve voted against numerous new hires. I’ve voted against many pay increases. I was the dissenting vote.”
After the meeting, Gordon shrugged Cormier’s comment off saying, “I guess you could say I’m a Democrat and I’m pro-labor.”
Raines also admonished Gordon for “threatening” the department heads with a 10 percent cut through his memo. Gordon, after the meeting, said he had no regrets.
“I got everybody’s attention,” Gordon said. “Since that 10 percent came up, everybody shows up to the budget meetings.”
While Raines said the conversation with the department heads was beneficial and the workshop had served its purpose, she added that Gordon’s participation was less than adequate.
“I’m frustrated,” she said. “He’s not working together. We have to be able to work together and we have to have a commission that’s cohesive.”
Decisions and adjustments to the 2015 budget as well as plans for the 2016 budget will be made in June, Raines added.
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