County asks departments to make cuts to relieve budget

By Keri Brenner | The Olympian • Published June 11, 2008

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Effects elsewhere

Sheriff's office potential cuts

•Amount to cut: $2.5 million

•Potential layoffs or vacancies to go unfilled: 22

•Patrol deputies or trainees affected: 9 (includes 5 authorized to start Jan. 1 but either still in training or not yet hired)

•Corrections officers or trainees affected: 7 (the number hired two years ago after an inmate attack in a courthouse elevator)

•Administrative staff members affected: 6

•Statewide standard ratio of county sheriff's deputies per 1,000 residents: 1

•Thurston County ratio of county sheriff's deputies per 1,000 residents: 0.7

•Date for the sheriff's office to take over county road-accident investigations from Washington State Patrol: July 2009.

Source: Thurston County Sheriff Dan Kimball

Other department leaders said they still are studying potential effects.

Michael Welter, who leads Thurston County's development services and parks departments, said the biggest hit will be in parks because development services tries to recover its costs by charging fees. The Department of Parks and Recreation, which oversees 300 acres of parks and 29 miles of trails, has 13 employees, he said.

"The smaller a department is, the bigger the impact," he said. He and his staff members will consider raising park admission and program fees to avoid layoffs, but he was not sure that would be enough.

In the county Roads and Transportation Services Department, director Lester Olson said he already has reduced asphalt overlays and chip-sealing programs by more than half on the county's 1,200 miles of roads.

He said he is considering switching to a de-icing program using brine that will save $200,000 to $300,000 a year and not filling the five or six vacancies in the department's 150-person staff.

"I knew it was coming," Olson said. "I knew they were supporting programs through reserves."

Oberquell said the county's revenue stream is declining because of the economic downturn and because the state requires the county to do various programs but doesn't allocate money to finance them.

"We only get 11 cents on the dollar (of property taxes)," Oberquell said. "The rest goes to schools, libraries, Medic One, the cemetery districts."

Unlike cities, counties do not collect business and occupation taxes, because the state Growth Management Act concentrates businesses in the urban areas, Oberquell added. Sales and property-tax revenues are down because of the economic situation.

She said the commissioners are considering administrative service cuts, such as closing the courthouse one day a week.

"We're in the first phase of figuring out what to do and how to do it," she said.

Keri Brenner covers Thurston County for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5435 or kbrenner@theolympian.com.

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