Whatcom County officials still working to close $3.4 million budget deficit

SAM TAYLOR - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

E-Mail

Print Reprint

Text Size:

tool goes here

Services that county taxpayers normally expect its government to provide could continue to be cut due to tough budget times, Whatcom County officials said Tuesday, Oct. 13.

County Council members got an eight-month budget update, assessing how the biennial budget has done over the first two-thirds of the year. The county administration is projecting a $3.4 million deficit between general fund revenues and expenditures at the end of the year, said Deputy Administrator Dewey Desler.

"We are not going to be able to sustain all of the things that people might want us to sustain because the revenue just isn't there over the medium and long term," Desler told the council at the end of a Finance Committee presentation.

Sluggish revenues and severely slashed investment interest income have hurt the county between August 2008 and Aug. 31, 2009, according to a report Desler provided to the council.

Investment interest income is down by about $1.07 million, sales tax and construction activity is $652,500 below projections and development-related revenues are down by about $1.1 million.

Timber sales, due to various market conditions and harvest timeframes, are below budget by about $466,000, according to Desler's report.

Within the next few weeks, the administration intends to come back with more information as to how to work through 2010 issues, too.

Still, Desler said, County Executive Pete Kremen's budget stabilization measures have helped shore up a much larger deficit. Those measures included one-time transfers from multiple government funds into the general fund; asking unions to take furloughs, which most have agreed to, Desler said, and a hiring freeze and eliminating positions through attrition. Those measures are designed to take effect over the full two-year period, Desler said.

Year over year, the county has cut about 60 positions from the budget, though most were not filled, from 970 staff members to 910.

"I'm not saying the world is coming to the end or the sky is falling. I'm not saying that," Desler said. "We're trying to take measures to address it."