How Thurston County’s COVID-19 budget has evolved ahead of public hearing this week
Thurston County commissioners will soon vote on a budget amendment proposed in reaction to COVID-19, and a couple of key pieces of the package look different than they did just a few weeks ago.
The proposed changes can be sorted into two tracks: spending cuts in response to projected revenue shortfalls, and plans to allocate millions of dollars in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding.
Commissioners recently reversed two earlier decisions related to cuts, one of which would have excluded the Sheriff’s Office from a 2 percent cut to general fund spending for offices and departments countywide. The discussions that led to that reversal took place out of public view. But officials say it stemmed from possible risk related to another since-reversed decision.
The public will have a chance to weigh in on the budget amendment virtually or in person at 3 p.m. Wednesday, July 29.
Where federal money is funneled
Thurston County received more than $15.7 million in coronavirus relief funds through the CARES Act based on its population, according to the state Department of Commerce. The money can be used to cover costs related to the COVID-19 public health emergency, weren’t accounted for in the budget approved as of March 27, and are incurred between March 1 and December 30, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
For counties with populations of 500,000 or fewer, though, the state is requiring the funds be spent by Oct. 31, Assistant County Manager Robin Campbell, who also serves as the county’s budget director, told The Olympian.
Campbell sent The Olympian a document in June that sums up where the CARES funding could be directed, and which she confirmed Friday remains accurate. Based on that document and the details of the proposed amendment:
- $2.9 million is allotted to county expenses incurred between March 1 and May 31 — a detailed breakdown of those expenses was not available as of Friday;
- $6.4 million is slated for the Department of Public Health and Social Services response to COVID-19;
- $1.5 million is allotted to the Thurston County Economic Development Council for micro-grants to small businesses impacted by COVID-19;
- $500,000 is allotted to the United Way of Thurston County to pay for food and hygiene products for families impacted by COVID-19; and
$783,329 is set aside for unanticipated needs of county offices and departments, as well as external organizations.
Requests from county departments and offices total more than $3.6 million, according to the June document, and cover a spectrum of needs, from laptops to staffing costs to personal protective equipment.
The biggest individual request came from Superior Court, which asked for $1.1 million for a courtroom. Campbell explained in an email that jury trials are getting severely backlogged, and that the current courtrooms have space to hold just one trial at a time with appropriate physical distancing, while normally there would be three or four happening at once. The CARES money for Superior and District Court will be used to lease more space, she wrote.
Other requests include $40,200 for information technology for the Auditor’s Elections set-up at South Puget Sound Community College, $30,000 for a utility relief program, and $45,000 to support the Providence drive-up COVID-19 testing site.
In an email, Campbell said the requests can be thought of in buckets: about $1.5 million to address the need for court space; $726,000 for information technology to support remote employees, physical distancing and remote access to services; $576,000 for emergency response, including funding for an isolation and quarantine site; $610,000 for personal protective equipment and changes in office space; and $229,000 for “a wide variety of miscellaneous needs in the county.”
How the county plans to cut costs
The budget amendment currently falls short of the goal set by staff to eliminate $5 million in general fund spending this year.
Recent projections presented by Campbell show revenues won’t decline much in 2020 but in the years that follow.
“This year, the fund balance in 2020, is not the one that we’re worried about,” Campbell told The Olympian. “We’re worried about next year, 2021 and 2022. Because the impact of the economic downturn is going to hit the county revenues harder the longer the pandemic drags on and the more the economy is hit.”
Forecasts aren’t destined to come true, of course, Campbell is quick to point out. These particular projections are based on what the county experienced during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, if it happened at once.
Proposed cuts come from several strategies, including a 90-day hiring delay for positions that became vacant after May 22, elimination of positions that were already vacant, savings from not holding an April Special Election, reducing non-departmental payments, and reducing payments into a savings account for future replacement of equipment. Offices could also buy back lost positions by finding other ways to save money.
Another cost-cutting strategy: the across-the-board, 2 percent budget cut for all county departments and offices.
In June, the commission decided to exclude the Sheriff’s Office from that cut in a 2-1 vote, after Commissioner Gary Edwards, a former county Sheriff, likened including it to “defunding law enforcement.”
In the midst of these discussions, the board passed a regularly scheduled budget amendment, which featured a $165,000 increase to the Sheriff’s corrections budget and a $786,000 increase to his law enforcement budget. Commissioner Tye Menser, as The Olympian previously reported, voted for parts of that amendment but against the amendment as a whole, saying it didn’t “reflect a consistent level of oversight” of offices and departments.
That amendment has been characterized by Menser as a $1.2 million backslide, some of which was inevitable, in the ongoing spending cuts meant to cushion the economic impact of COVID-19.
Falling short of its target, the board eventually voted 2-1 to cut work hours for county employees from 40 to 36 per week, excluding 24/7 shift workers, people who earn $53,000 dollars or less, and part-time employees.
Commissioner Edwards voted against the decision and has voiced several times in recent weeks that he does not believe “the sky is falling” or that budget impacts will be as dire as staff projects.
He told The Olympian he didn’t think the hours cut was going to be fair for all parties concerned, and that he didn’t think the county “had done adequate research.” The county is less dependent on sales tax than cities, he said, and today’s situation is much different than what was happening in 2008.
After the hours-cut decision was made, commissioners went into executive sessions. After they emerged, the decision was reversed and the Sheriff’s Office was included in the 2 percent cut.
“You rescinded the decision of reducing the work hours from 40 to 36 hours — that decision was rescinded,” County Manager Ramiro Chavez said in a public work session July 9. “In lieu of that, the majority of the board approved an across-the-board 2-percent reduction.”
Cuts to funds outside the general fund will be considered as the board builds its 2021-22 budget, according to public discussions, with a few exceptions.
Why the reversals?
Executive sessions happen out of public view, but a few officials have shed light on pieces of what happened.
Menser, a former public defense attorney, told The Olympian at least a couple elected officials argued that cutting employees’ hours exceeded the board’s legal authority — in part, that the board can set the budget but not dictate strategies on how to implement it. He declined to say who expressed concern.
“We went into executive sessions because an elected official suggested that we were overstepping our bounds when we were looking at furlough or reduction of work hours — that was overstepping our bounds, which could lead to legal action,” Commissioner John Hutchings told The Olympian. Hutchings also declined to name the official or officials “out of respect.”
Both Hutchings and Menser mentioned that, in 2009, then-Sheriff Dan Kimball appealed a decision by the then-Board of County Commissioners in court, saying the board was out-of-line in telling his office how to implement budget cuts. Court records show that the parties settled in that case.
Any legal process now could be costly to the county, Menser said, with it having to pay outside counsel due to the county Prosecutor’s conflict of interest, and would “undercut budget savings” the board was trying to achieve.
Menser said he preferred to stay the course with the board’s decisions, so they could have a shot at meeting their $5 million target while keeping employees employed, but that he was outvoted. The work-hours decision was reversed.
In the end, the majority of the Board compromised by including the sheriff’s office in the across-the-board cut. Commissioner Edwards said in a July 9 work session that he did not vote for the decision.
Commissioner Hutchings, a former police officer and chair of the board, originally had voted to exclude the Sheriff’s Office. In an interview with The Olympian, he called his more recent vote a “financial decision” rather than a political stand. Even though he’s concerned that the Sheriff is underfunded and doesn’t have proper staffing, he said, the county is “pulling together.”
And, as he has pointed out in at least one public meeting, the Sheriff’s law enforcement budget is still more than he was originally allotted for this year, considering the regularly scheduled budget amendment, and he doesn’t lose much, relatively, from his corrections budget.
“We’re not defunding law enforcement, we’re not defunding public health, we’re not defunding anybody...” Hutchings said. “Everybody is tightening the belt.”
Sheriff John Snaza’s proposed cuts require eliminating two vacant Correction Deputy and two vacant Deputy Sheriff positions, according to the amendment. He planned to take money out of the office’s savings account for future replacement of equipment, he told The Olympian in a phone interview, but the county had already done that as part of its cuts.
The Olympian has previously reported that Thurston County ranks 37th out of Washington’s 39 counties for its ratio of deputies per capita, according to data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, which Snaza again brought up, also mentioning that five positions are funded through outside sources.
“If you take deputies away, you are defunding law enforcement,” Snaza said. Commissioner Edwards agreed, in a separate interview.
“In my estimation, I think this is a poor time, faced with what we’re faced with around the country, to be defunding law enforcement,” he said, adding, “Who you gonna call, Ghostbusters, when things are bad?”
How to participate in the public hearing
The full spreadsheet of additions and eliminations in the budget in the amendment, broken down by office and department, is available on the county’s website, along with other supporting documents.
Here’s how to weigh in:
When: 3 p.m. Wednesday, July 29
Where: Thurston County Courthouse, Building 1, Room 280 (2000 Lakeridge Drive SW, Olympia) or on Zoom
People who want to attend virtually need to register in advance here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvf-6spz0jGdZGZdywwRMWK_B4AW2p6Jom. Information is sent to registrants ahead of the meeting about how to join.
Written public comments are being accepted until 2 p.m. the day of the meeting by email at robin.campbell@co.thurston.wa.us or by mail at Thurston County Board of County Commissioners, Attn: Robin Campbell, Assistant County Manager, 2000 Lakeridge Dr. SW, Olympia, WA 98502.
This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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