Thurston Commissioners vote 2-1 for across-the-board cuts, including Sheriff’s Office

The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners adopted a much-discussed budget amendment on Tuesday in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one that includes a 2 percent cut in general fund expenditures by all county departments.

It also allocates more than $16 million of COVID-19 relief funding from the CARES Act.

Cuts to spending from the general fund total $4.1 million, falling short of the commission’s stated goal of slashing $5 million from the budget. Cost-cutting strategies undertaken by the county include reducing scheduled payments into accounts for equipment replacement and implementing a 90-day hiring freeze for positions that became vacant starting May 22.

The across-the-board reductions also include the elimination of four full-time positions from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office — two corrections officers and two deputy sheriff positions — despite the vehement protests of Commissioner Gary Edwards and other residents who in June were able to exclude the Sheriff’s Office from any budget cuts.

Sheriff John Snaza initially offered up the four vacant positions during budget negotiations in June, but the commissioners voted 2-1 to exempt the Sheriff’s Office from the otherwise countywide cut of 2 percent. Following an aborted attempt to curb spending by reducing workforce hours, Commissioners Tye Menser and John Hutchings decided to take Snaza up on his offer.

“I will concede that the sheriff under duress and in an attempt to play team ball with the rest of the team said that’s the only place he can absorb this kind of reduction in funding,” Edwards said.

“We’re ultimately the ones in charge of the budget and we’re the ones who make the decisions whether or not any entity will get adequately funded. I want to say for the record we are inadequately funding that position.”

Edwards said he considers the action to be akin to defunding the police, a phrase at the forefront of ongoing protests against police brutality and racial injustice in Olympia and across the country.

Edwards attempted to introduce an amendment to the budget resolution that would have reversed all proposed budget reductions impacting elected county officials, including Snaza. Assistant County Manager Robin Campbell, who serves as the budget director, confirmed that doing so would wipe out all but $500,000 of the cuts to spending from the general fund.

Edwards did not receive a vote on his amendment. His was the lone no vote against adopting the overarching budget amendment.

“Without fanning the flames of fashionable political passions, this is not defunding,” Hutchings said. “This is something the Sheriff has twice now offered up as part of the exercise along with all the other leaders in this organization and the county government to a responsible solution using the taxpayers dollars wisely, preparing for what may happen in 2021 and 2022.”

Edwards later repeated his earlier stance that the budget cuts adopted Tuesday are too drastic and that he doesn’t see the fiscal emergency that others do. He has previously stated that he does not believe the “sky is falling” when it comes to county finances.

Rather than make cuts in anticipation of continued coronavirus-related shortfalls in 2021 and 2022, Edwards said, the county could weather the storm by undergoing some pro-business regulatory reform and better prepare itself for urban dwellers he expects will soon flee to suburban cities and rural towns.

Menser said he sits in on multiple Washington Association of Counties meetings each week and that the messages from other members are in line with actions taken by Thurston County.

“I sit in on those meetings every week and I have not heard in their roundtable, I can’t say definitively, but I have not heard a single comment from a county in Washington state where they’re saying ‘we don’t need to cut our budget,’” Menser said.

“To my knowledge, there’s not a single other jurisdiction in Washington state that’s not taking the position that we need to make some adjustments.”