State lawmakers: Give counties revenue options

AFTER six weeks of intensive deliberation, the Metropolitan King County Council averted a public-safety crisis with unanimous adoption of the 2009 King County Budget — but that is just the first of two steps needed to truly protect the highest priorities of public safety, health and quality of life.

The structure for providing revenues for Washington counties is broken and must be fixed in the next session of the state Legislature. Without any action, we will be back here next year staring at a $41 million shortfall in 2010 and a $62 million shortfall in 2011, and the cuts to public safety and health will be truly devastating.

The County Council closed this year's unprecedented $93 million budget shortfall with cuts to the sheriff's and prosecutor's offices and the courts, cuts to essential public-health programs, and by shutting down county government for 10 days next year with the understanding and cooperation of our valued employees, who agreed to an unpaid furlough.

By poring over this budget line by line, we were able to identify $10 million in one-time savings and delayed capital projects that enabled us to restore some of the worst cuts. These restorations allowed us to continue funding for one more year our successful Drug Diversion Court, Mental Health Court, Unified Family Court Services, sheriff's storefronts in unincorporated communities, public-health centers and more.

We will not find those savings next year. Those programs and many more that are critical to public safety and health will be gone without action by the Legislature.

We are not asking the state for cash — the state faces a massive shortfall of its own. What we are seeking is the means to help ourselves so that the counties of Washington can be self-sustaining.

Counties were created by the state of Washington to provide public safety through the sheriff, justice through the prosecutor and the courts, and basic health and life safety through the public-health department. That makes counties a government subdivision of the state of Washington.

All Washington counties are feeling the financial pinch. In fact, several counties in Eastern Washington face bankruptcy and rely on direct state contributions to keep their doors open.

The state has historically provided counties with fewer sources of revenue than cities and too little flexibility in how they can be used. What we need is a tool kit — including a review of revenues and a lifting of unnecessary restrictions on the use of the revenues already available, so long as they don't hurt the families of King County. The primary revenue source counties do have, the property tax, is capped at 1 percent growth per year plus tax on new construction, which is well below current growth rates in costs.

Every year, as costs rise and revenues either stay flat or plunge, King County's budget constricts tighter and tighter. Without a long-term solution in the next few months, we will be forced to dismantle county government program by program, putting citizens' safety at risk and jeopardizing our constitutional responsibility to provide basic services.

State lawmakers must also address their use of unfunded mandates, which are laws they pass requiring counties to perform services without the funding to pay for them. For King County, these mandates cost us more than $25 million a year. We placed $3.5 million of these unfunded mandates into the so-called "lifeboat," which represents funding for only the first half of next year without further action from lawmakers.

We call on the citizens who brought their stories to us in our public hearings to join us in calling on Olympia for action — people like 8-year old Megan Bultman, who spent hours rehearsing her speech so that we could understand the importance of the King County Fair and the 4-H program to her education; or Kerilynne Lawrence, who told us how having Drug Court as an alternative to jail helped her stay clean and get her life back.

We must tell these stories to state legislators so they will feel compelled to find options and provide flexibility to ensure citizens of King County are safe and healthy, enjoying a high quality of life for decades to come.

Councilmembers Larry Phillips, Jane Hague, Bob Ferguson and Kathy Lambert served as the budget leadership team for the Metropolitan King County Council.