The Grays Harbor County commissioners each have submitted respective draft budget proposals for the 2017 general fund.
Commissioner and Chairman Wes Cormier’s budget would have had an operating deficit of more than $321,000 were it not for the three-tenths of 1 percent public safety sales tax. With an anticipated $1.4 million from that tax, which was approved by voters in August this year, Cormier’s budget will round out 2017 with a more than $1.03 million surplus.
Commissioner Vickie Raines has proposed a budget with a more than $1.24 million operating deficit. That includes public safety sales tax.
Raines’ proposed budget also would leave the county with $4.25 million in ending cash. That’s some $227,000 short of the county’s target of $4.47 million in ending cash, which covers 16 percent of expenditures in case of emergencies. That’s based on an estimated $5.5 million in beginning cash.
Commissioner Frank Gordon’s proposed budget has an operating deficit of more than $1.17 million. Assuming the same $5.5 million in beginning cash, Gordon’s budget also falls short of the county’s 16-percent ending cash benchmark, leaving only about $4.32 million in ending cash, nearly $152,000 shy of the target.
Raines
Raines’ budget begins by slashing any expenditure requests that are over current level, a more than $2.3 million cut. Her budget then adds in key pieces from those cuts including two large items — more than $234,500 for non-departmental, and $220,000 for building and planning. Raines’ budget also included nearly $123,000 in expenditures for currently filled positions in the Auditor and Treasurer’s offices.
Contract negotiations are ongoing for several union positions within the county. Raines has earmarked more than $132,500 for potential salary and benefit increases.
Raines’ budget plans for an increase in property tax revenue of about $162,500, as well as an increase in building and permit fee revenue of $53,000.
Gordon
Gordon proposed cuts to most departments within the general fund, as compared to their initial budget requests submitted to the commissioners. The exceptions were courthouse security, public defense, emergency management, juvenile, and LEOFF1 benefits. All except LEOFF1 Benefits (which Gordon increased by about $5,300) were increased by less than $1,000.
The most significant cuts were made to the corrections, planning and building and Prosecutor and Sheriff budgets. Gordon’s suggested cuts are: corrections by more than $488,000, allocating some $3.7 million; planning and building at about $373,000, allocating $935,000; the prosecutor’s office at about $312,000; the Sheriff’s office at more than $298,000, allocating $6.8 million.
Cormier
Cormier’s budget proposal, like Gordon’s, makes adjustments to the initial department requests. All proposed adjustments are cuts, except for an additional $98,000 for District Court (allocating about $1.29 million), and civil service, the Coroner’s office, and Superior Court, which all received $1,000 or less in additional allocations.
Cormier’s biggest suggested cuts are for the corrections department, the Prosecutor’s office, the planning and building department, and the Sheriff’s office.
He proposed cutting $940,000 from the corrections budget, allocating some $3.26 million. The Prosecutor’s office took the second largest cut at $410,000, with Cormier suggesting an allocation of $2.19 million. The cut to planning and building amounts to $365,000 with an allocation of $935,000. And the Sheriff’s office could take a cut of $300,000, seeing an allocation instead of about $6.7 million.
The budgets are all draft budgets and the commissioners have planned additional workshops to discuss the 2017 general fund budget. The commissioners might also combine pieces of each budget to create a fourth draft budget for consideration.
During the afternoon meeting on Dec. 5, the commissioners continued a hearing to adopt a 2017 budget until Dec. 19 citing the workshops.
Sales tax
While the Sheriff’s office, Prosecutor’s office and corrections all would be impacted by the direct cuts in the budgets submitted by Cormier and Gordon, those departments also could benefit from the revenue generated by a public safety sales tax, which will begin accumulating in 2017.
The tax could collect as much as $1.4 million for the county. Commissioner Raines — the commissioners’ representative to the three-tenths of 1 percent committee — has urged the commissioners to allocate less than the estimated total.
During a budget meeting on Nov. 30, the commissioners offered their proposed allocations for the possible revenue from the sales tax.
Raines suggested allocating nearly $1.34 million. That leaves about $60,500 in ending cash for that fund. Raines suggested setting aside $150,000 for capital facilities needs and software replacement (both specific to public safety). $710,000 for the corrections department, $390,960 for the Sheriff’s office, $77,347 for the Prosecutor’s office and $11,182 for Superior Court.
Cormier suggested allocating a little more than one million dollars and holding some $360,000 for reserves. For line items, Cormier recommends allocating $215,000 for the Sheriff’s office, more than $700,000 for corrections, and using $100,000 for capital facilities.
Gordon’s suggested allocations amount to about 969,000. Within each department, Gordon included line items to note how the allocations should be spent: The corrections department would receive more than $373,500 to hire four deputies, nearly $218,000 to hire three support specialists, and $25,00 for a radio repeater for the jail; the Sheriff’s office would receive nearly $111,000 to hire a patrol deputy; the Prosecutor’s office would receive more than $77,000 to hire another deputy prosecuting attorney.
Gordon also suggested allocating about $11,000 to the courts, reserving $100,000 for facilities capital, and suggested holding $50,000 for software if the sales tax revenue exceeds $1.4 million.
