County looking to legislature for budget solution

In the midst of a gloomy revenue forecast, Wahkiakum County officials have started talks to prepare their 2016 budgets.

Commissioners have been meeting with department heads this week to go over requests. The meetings will continue into Thursday.

Overall, the county is expecting a shortfall of $600,000 in revenue for the Current Expense Fund, which finances most courthouse offices.

"It's bad," Commissioner Blair Brady commented.

One factor in the revenue shortage is low return from timber harvest on the county's trust timberlands. County officials would like to have $1.2 million or more to support current programs, but the projection for 2016 is only $921,840, and in 2017, $825,000.

Two factors have limited the county's ability to generate revenue from the trust lands. First, over 3,000 of the county's 12,000 acres of trust timberland have been encumbered or taken out of production as potential habitat for an endangered species, the marbled murrelet. Second, the timber markets softened this year and lowered the amount of revenue a timber sale would produce.

Commissioner Dan Cothren will spearhead an effort in the next legislative session to compensate Wahkiakum, Pacific and Skamania counties for their encumbered trust timber lands.

For several years, the counties have been working with the legislature and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to compensate the counties for the encumbered lands, but the efforts have fallen short of expectations. Appropriations have been reduced as the state deals with the state Supreme Court's McCleary Decision which mandated increased funding for basic education.

Cothren has been working with the Columbia Land Trust (CLT) on a proposal for legislation that would trade the three counties' encumbered trust land to the state's Common School Trust for trust land that could go into the harvest rotation.

"We've got to do something," Cothren said.

The idea is still in its nascent stage, Cherie Kearney, CLT forestry initiative director said Tuesday. "The idea is to provide the counties some revenue off lands that aren't encumbered. The encumbered lands would go into a natural area conservation program for the Common School Trust."

For the idea to succeed, they'll have to have agreement by the three counties, and support from the state association of counties and the DNR to convince the legislature the swap would be good for conservation and for the counties.

Meanwhile, commissioners will look for more revenue sources and decide what programs can be scaled back or eliminated in 2016.