Metropolitan King County Council 516 Third Ave., Rm. 1200 Seattle, WA 98104 Phone: 206-296-1000 Toll Free: 800-325-6165 TTY/TDD: 206-296-1024 Fax: 206-296-0198 council@kingcounty.gov
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Aug. 4, 2008 Council adopts public safety, health and quality of life as top priorities for 2009 budget deliberationsFirst focus to be on reducing or eliminating non-essential programsWith what is now projected to be an $80 million shortfall in the general fund for 2009, the Metropolitan King County Council today declared public safety, health and quality of life as its first priorities for funding in the County budget. The priorities developed by members of the Council’s budget leadership team also identify some preliminary areas for finding budget efficiencies.
“With an $80 million general fund budget deficit, it’s critical that we prioritize basic services that have every day impacts on the safety, health, and quality of life of King County citizens,” said Councilmember Larry Phillips, Chair of the 2009 Budget Review and Adoption Committee. “This legislation will establish the framework for the Council to tackle the enormous undertaking of adopting a balanced, responsible budget in these troubling economic times.”
“This legislation prioritizes the core services provided by the County,” said Councilmember Bob Ferguson, chair of the Council’s Operating Budget, Fiscal Management and Select Issues Committee. “The County faces a significant budget shortfall in 2009, and this legislation recognizes the need to protect public safety and health funding, while safeguarding our citizen’s qualify of life.”
“King County has an obligation to provide local government services to those who live outside of incorporated cities,” said Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who represents District 3 in northeast King County. “For 368,000 citizens, we are their local government, and the direct provider of police, roads and land-use services, as well as their regional government. After hearing from many of our residents in unincorporated areas, I am committed to ensuring our budget puts a priority on funding adequate service levels to protect public safety and health for those who depend on King County.”
“We must do whatever it takes to preserve our top priority of public safety,” said Councilmember Jane Hague, vice-chair of the Council’s Capital Budget Committee.
Under the adopted motion, the Council calls upon the County Executive to examine the following specific areas in his budget proposal:
• Annexations: Refocus the $8 million in reserves that remain of funds set aside for the King County Annexation Initiative to those potential annexation areas that are actively being considered by local cities, and redirecting remaining funds towards public safety services in the urban unincorporated areas. After four years and more than $2 million in operations and staffing costs, only two of the largest urban unincorporated areas have successfully annexed, resulting in only minimal savings to the County.
• Property holdings: Evaluate real property owned by the general fund for the feasibility of selling parcels to close the budget gap.
• Capital project prioritization: Analyze all County capital improvement projects and the need for continuing with them in relation to the provision of core County services.
• Animal welfare: Ensure that the proposed 2009 budget conforms to the operational master plan for the provision of sustainable and timely humane animal welfare services by King County and partner agencies.
• Fees: Highlight any fees for service that return less to the County than the cost of providing that service.
• Business Relations and Economic Development: Examine those services of this office that do not pay for themselves from revenues outside the general fund.
• Jail beds: Make more bed spaces in King County jails available to local cities, which pay more for housing of their inmates than does the state.
• Unfunded state mandates: Provide a list of all unfunded mandates from the state of Washington that continue to shift the financial burden to county governments. The list will include the cost incurred by the County to provide the services, so that the Council can develop strategies for their reimbursement, reduction or elimination.
• Internal services: Enable separately-elected officials to determine what level of overhead services they wish to pay for and receive, such as janitorial services, fleet maintenance or computer support, in order to free up more of their budgets toward public services, such as police patrols.
The motion also sets the Council’s intent through its budget deliberations to:
• Declare the protection of public safety, health and enhancing the quality of life to be its top priority, and that before reducing funding in those areas it would look first to reduce or eliminate services deemed non-essential and use a prudent portion of existing reserves to preserve essential services in the short term,
• Encourage County government to become more entrepreneurial and seek partnerships with both public and private sector partners that allow the county to leverage additional resources for funding essential services, and
• Develop a sustainable budget in the long term by looking beyond departmental cuts and focusing on policy and programmatic changes that would make a difference in the County’s overall costs of doing business.
The proposed motion also calls upon the Governor and state Legislature to permanently address the structural funding gap facing all counties in Washington state by authorizing expanded types of revenues for local jurisdictions that provide for sufficient growth to meet rising annual costs and have the flexibility of helping to fund basic public services.
The County Executive is scheduled to transmit his 2009 Executive Proposed Budget to the Council on October 13.
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