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July 2008 Meeting Summary
King County Budget By Peter Rimbos, Corresponding Secretary
The Greater Maple Valley Area Council held its regular monthly meeting on Monday, July 14, with 7 members present, 6 members absent (with 3 providing proxies), and 3 positions open. The following items were addressed:
1) Maple Valley Fire & Safety Levy
2) King County Budget
The Area Council serves as an all-volunteer, locally elected advisory body to the King County Council and represents all rural unincorporated area residents living in the Tahoma School District.
Maple Valley Fire & Safety Levy Fire Chief Tim Lemon of the King County Fire Protection District 43 provided background on the Proposition 1, Fire Levy Lid Lift, on the August 19 Primary Election ballot. The Levy is the primary source of revenue for handling emergency response calls, as well as day-to-day operations.
The Lid Lift will restore the levy rate to the $1.50 per $1,000.00 of assessed valuation previously approved by fire district voters. Chief Lemon pointed out that Initiative 747 has limited the Fire District to a 1% increase over the previous year’s budget. Unfortunately, operational costs have exceeded this. To address this problem the WA State Legislature in 2006 allowed Fire Districts to conduct levy lid lifts that include an inflationary factor for the following five years. The Fire Levy Lid Lift is for 6 years and, thus, there would be no need for the Fire District to conduct an election every other year to re-authorize the $1.50 per $1,000.00.
Should fire district voters approve, a home assessed at $350,000 would pay an additional $38.50 a year. More information is available at: www.maplevalleyfire.org.
King County Budget Bob Cowan, King County Budget Office Director, discussed the financial problems facing King County’s General Fund and initial actions being taken. The General Fund covers basic county services including (percentages shown for 2008): Law, Safety, & Justice (71%), General Government (17%), Health & Human Services (7%).
Mr. Cowan stated that the December 2007 “County Financial Health & Governance Alternatives Study” by Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development (CTED) found that all WA counties are fiscally distressed to varying degrees (see: http://www.cted.wa.gov/site/1044/default.aspx). King County is facing a potential shortfall of $16.3M (~2.5% of a $658.75M budget) in 2008 with additional shortfalls estimated through the year 2012.
Mr. Cowan identified that there is a structural problem between revenue growth and cost growth. Property taxes, which are the largest part of revenues (44%), are limited to 1% growth per year (due to I-747). However, the resulting revenues cannot keep up with growth in costs such as personnel-related COLA, benefits, retirement contributions, etc. In past years reserves were used to make up this shortfall, but will run out in 2008 or 2009. To address the shortfalls this year and in coming years Executive Sims has instructed all County agencies to identify expenditure reductions. Discretionary agencies (e.g., human services, parks, etc.) have been provided a 2009 target reduction level of 33% of projected 2009 costs. Mandatory agencies (e.g., law and justice) were given a 2009 target reduction level of 8.65%.
Area Council members asked how the shortfall could be addressed in the long term. Mr. Cowan stated that the County needs to:
1) develop and implement a system that results in lower costs to meet service demands;
2) develop a legislative strategy with the state for revenue relief (e.g., change in the 1% property tax limitation, institute a county utility tax, etc.); and
3) develop a non-revenue legislative strategy with the state to address unfunded mandates.
Mr. Cowan identified the following potential options provided in the aforementioned 2007 CTED report: policy changes (e.g., annexation requirements--providing services to unincorporated urban areas results in a deficit of ~$20M per year); charges for regional services (e.g., property tax assessment and collection as the state does to administer the sales tax); modification of the 1% limitation on property taxes; new regional revenue for criminal justice and public health programs; and utility taxes.
More information on the budget can be found on the King County Office of Management and Budget web site at: http://www.metrokc.gov/budget/.
Next MeetingThe Area Council meets on the first Monday of each month (except on legal holidays) at the Sheriff’s Precinct # 3 Headquarters located at 231st St & SR-169 (across from Fire Station). The public is invited to attend. Each meeting begins with an Open Comment period allowing citizens to voice issues of concern. Our next regular monthly meeting will be held on Monday, August 4, at 7:00 PM.
Comments on Area Council business may be submitted to GMVAC, P.O. Box 101, Maple Valley, WA 98038, or to gmvac_chair@hotmail.com.
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