Thurston Sheriff expects to overspend budget by $500,000

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office expects to overspend its roughly $19.8 million budget for law enforcement this year by more than $500,000 — and it’s requesting the Board of County Commissioners cover that overspending out of the county’s general fund balance.

It’s the biggest request from the Sheriff for law enforcement overspending that Assistant County Manager Robin Campbell has seen in her nearly 10 years at the county.

But Sheriff John Snaza says he’s been transparent about his office’s spending and creative about cutting costs. The department, he says, is simply “underfunded.”

How much warning did commissioners have?

Assistant County Manager Campbell confirmed that officials have known “for some time that the Sheriff was overspending his budget, but no action has been taken.”

She told The Olympian the department’s financial officer “does an excellent job” and that the department always turns in its financial plans when they’re due. All county offices are asked to submit a quarterly report that includes what they’ve spent and what they expect to spend.

The opportunity for offices and departments to come forward with unexpected receipts or requests to amend the budget comes twice per year, Campbell explained.

The Sheriff’s Office projected about $321,000 in overruns for law enforcement in April, and the Board of County Commissioners directed the office to manage its costs, Campbell told The Olympian.

But, the office ultimately came back with this request of more than $501,000, which the board first reviewed at a work session Nov. 7. The commission then asked the Sheriff to manage with $475,000 instead, according to Campbell.

Commissioners grapple with the Sheriff’s request

The statement of need the Sheriff’s Office submitted to the county reads that the office “is not properly funded in several areas such as overtime, extra help, call-out pay, supplies, and training,” and that budget requests that were submitted weren’t funded.

At Tuesday’s work session, Commissioner Gary Edwards, a former sheriff himself, seemed to be the only commissioner willing to consider the Sheriff’s justification.

“We have to remember that there’s always extenuating circumstance,” Edwards said Tuesday. Say, if major case activity develops — a bridge goes out or “heaven forbid we have a school shooting” or emergencies eat away at the overtime budget.

Commission chair Hutchings, who previously served as Chief of Police in Tenino, was less convinced and said he was “kind of stunned” when nobody from the Sheriff’s Office showed up to the November discussion or Tuesday’s work session.

“We haven’t had a bridge go out, and thank God we have not had a school shooting. But we do have medical bills, the Sheriff does. But the only mitigation I’m hearing is, ‘You don’t give us enough money or you’re not giving us enough deputies ...’ I’m not hearing ‘Here’s how we can mitigate it’ or ‘Here’s a reason for it.’ It’s always an excuse.”

According to state law, spending in excess of budget appropriations aren’t a liability of the county. The official who spends the money — with the exception of emergencies and court orders — is personally liable.

“We have the legal right to make that person responsible for that — I don’t want to do that,” Commissioner Menser said Tuesday. “Nobody wants to do that. But that’s how serious it is.”

The sheriff’s half-million-dollar ask isn’t the only request this year: Public Defense anticipates it’ll overspend its budget by $150,000, the Sheriff also expects to overspend his corrections budget by $24,000, and Public Works requested $75,000 due to a major project not being executed, according to Campbell at Tuesday’s meeting.

Public Defense meets with Campbell monthly to create a plan, officials said Tuesday, “because they can’t always control the number of cases filed by the prosecutor.”

Menser said the Sheriff’s overrun wasn’t fair to other offices and departments that are “playing by a different set of rules and feeling undermined,” and that there needs to be “across-the-board consistency.”

During a break in this week’s work session, Hutchings told The Olympian he thought the overspending was “an unconditional presupposition” on the department’s part. He likened it to giving a kid an allowance, then having the kid come back to say they spent it all and need more.

Sheriff Snaza defends his overruns

Sheriff Snaza used a somewhat similar analogy — from the opposing perspective — in an interview with The Olympian: He said it’s like if you were to ask for a $100 dress, then get handed $75 and a direction to “buy the dress.”

He said the meeting “really upset” the department’s financial officer, and that his department provides monthly budget updates at its Advanced Management Meetings, which the commissioners are welcome to attend. He questioned why a county commissioner didn’t ask him about this sooner and why help hasn’t been offered.

“Robin has known about all of this and knows exactly where we’re at financially,” Snaza said. “I don’t know why she hasn’t tried to help us out.”

“It’s unfortunate I have to worry about the Board of County Commissioners saying things that offend my staff. I’m here to protect them. And they are working their butts off for this county and do everything they can to make it right. And they’re not helping us out one bit.”

When The Olympian told Campbell about Snaza’s comment, she replied that she wasn’t sure “how Sheriff Snaza thinks I could’ve helped him in this regard,” and that she has a good working relationship with the Sheriff’s Office.

“This is a difficult situation,” Campbell said.

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, Snaza often points out, ranks 37th out of Washington’s 39 counties for its ratio of deputies per capita. Data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs confirms that statistic.

Thurston’s office employed 0.64 deputies per 1,000 people in 2018, according to the WASPC data. The only two counties with lower ratios were Clark County, which employed 0.63 deputies per 1,000 and Island County, which employed 0.6 deputies per 1,000.

The Olympia Police Department, in contrast, employed 1.41 officers per 1,000 people, Lacey employed 1 per 1,000, and Tumwater employed 1.22 per $1,000.

“Once we do the census, you’re going to see our population has skyrocketed and our deputies are working so hard,” Snaza said.

In the meantime, Snaza says he’s gotten creative with staffing. “A lot of the cost savings that we do seem to go unnoticed,” he said.

An example: The office has worked out paid contracts to fund five deputies the commission authorized, he said — a deputy at North Thurston School District, for example, and two with the City of Rainier.

Nobody disputes the Sheriff’s Office is understaffed, Campbell said. Those contracts, though, generate revenue to cover new costs, not existing costs.

“I have no doubt the Sheriff is doing things, but the fact remains he’s overspending the appropriation.”

The board’s plan moving forward

The commission indicated it will fund $475,000 of the department’s request for this year and won’t approve its request for $460,000 in expected overspending for law enforcement in 2020.

The board is scheduled to vote on the budget amendment that includes that plan next Tuesday.

Snaza told The Olympian his office halted purchases in September, and he expects he’ll be able to stay under $475,000 for 2019.

The undersheriff has reached out to Campbell, officials said Tuesday, and she’ll be providing support in 2020 using a “zero-based budget approach,” which means they’ll “start from scratch” and look at costs.

County staff is also drafting a letter the board will consider sending to all county offices and departments “highlighting their responsibility to manage their budget as appropriated by the Board of County Commissioners,” County Manager Ramiro Chavez said Tuesday.