Commissioners reign in spending

Facing a $1 million revenue shortfall for 2008, Wahkiakum County commissioners on Tuesday took action to control spending.

Commissioners Dan Cothren and Blair Brady passed a resolution suggested by Commissioner George Trott, who has been fishing in Alaska, to implement a hiring freeze, restrict all county travel, and to halt the purchase of new equipment, with exceptions allowed on a case by case basis.

The board also met with other county officials to discuss other ways to cut spending or generate revenue. Those discussions will continue next Tuesday, 8:30 a.m., in the Treasurer's Finance Committee.

Commissioners have warned for several years that county revenues haven't been increasing as fast as the cost of operations is growing. They have been cutting funding for non-mandated programs, and last year cut several employee's positions from the budget.

However, an accounting mistake is worsening the situation. The state Department of Natural Resources, which manages the harvest of timber from county trust timberlands, discovered recently that it had mistakenly told the county it would get $750,000 more than it should from a timber sale.

Combined with a decline in state real estate excise tax collections and another decline in interest from investment, the timber shortfall created the current $1 million shortfall in the county's Current Expense Fund, officials said.

The Current Expense Fund covers courthouse operations such as auditor, treasurer, assessor, courts, jail and sheriff's office. Other funds such as the Road Department and Health and Human Services have other funding sources and aren't yet facing the revenue crisis.

The projection for 2009 is also bleak, commissioners said, meaning more budget cuts will be made.

Cothren said DNR foresters hope to set up a small sale that can help the county immediately. Large sales, he added, require more formal review and thus take more time.

"We're hoping to get something for around $300,000 this year," he said. "And it won't disrupt our sustained yield harvest rate."

While raising taxes is another way of raising funds, Cothren and Brady emphasized that measure is the least desirable.

Commissioners could impose an increase in sales tax, but most other tax measures would require a vote, they said, and the measures, if approved, wouldn't produce funds till 2009 at the earliest.

Brady said other measures under consideration include shortening the work day or work week and cutting non-mandated programs.

Treasurer Paula Holloway and Prosecuting Attorney Dan Bigelow said the county could borrow about $500,000 from its Cumulative Reserve for Contingent Liabilities.

Cothren reported that negotiations between Wahkiakum and other small counties with DNR managed timber have had success: The DNR is willing to support legislation that would change the timber trusts and compensate the county for trust timberland that has been locked up as wildlife habitat.

Cothren said the proposal going to the legislature would create two funds, one for financing county operations and the other for purchase of additional timberlands.

"This whole thing will make Wahkiakum County solid," Cothren said.

The agency and county will present the proposal to legislators for action in next year's legislative session. Cothren said he has reviewed the plan with the governor's office, and the Washington Association of Counties will lobby for it.

"We have to have more timberland to survive," Cothren said. "If we don't hammer this out, we won't exist as a county."