Board of County Commissioners - workshop

RECORDING IN PROGRESS.

IT'S 1249 AND WE'RE PICKING BACK UP WITH OUR WORK SESSION AND IT'S DISTRICT COURT HERE. SO WE HAVE A HANDY TIMER TO TRY TO KEEP US ON SCHEDULE. DISTRICT COURT.

THANK YOU. GOOD AFTERNOON. I'VE MADE SOME NOTES. And then I crossed that out after thinking about it, because I don't have to tell you guys that, because you've been looking at it for the last 36 hours. So I reframed it, and I said, I wanted to tell you, this is my favorite meeting of the year, where we actually get to learn how we can do more with less. And so I'm really excited about that prospect. And sarcasm aside... What I want to say really is that the last couple of years, I really appreciate the reorientation of the budget approach from the board. The fact that the board actually asks questions of the courts and the other departments and doesn't just unilaterally take action in response to the financial situation of the county. By asking each department or county agency to explain impacts of proposed budget reductions allows the board and members of the public who may be observing this to understand the implications of any subsequent budget reductions. So it's not just, okay, you know, we had to take a cut and then how do you explain what you did with that cut? We're having this conversation now and they can understand And I think that's really important. So I really appreciate the transparency the board offers us as somebody who's funded through the general fund to come in and explain to all of you any reduction and the impact that it would have on us, rather than us coming to you afterwards and whining and complaining about it. So to me, that makes a lot more sense. And honestly, to me, it, in my opinion, allows the board to make really strategic choices in how you apply budget reductions across the board in the county. You know, if the board was to do what it has done in the past, in my number of years here, is to say, okay, we have financial constraints. Everybody has to reduce their budget by 5%. That's not very strategic. That's not figuring out what's important to the board, what's important to the county in applying reductions that way. The way you're doing it now, where you ask us to come in and say, what are the ramifications of any budget reduction, allows the board to hear that. And then in consideration of its response to that, you can make strategic choices. You can listen to those and you can say, here's where we think we can make cuts without Huge cuts in service. Here's where we think we can't make cuts because we're going to have too big of a cut in service. So I really appreciate the Board's reorientation in this budget process. And finally, I want to thank Summer and Leonard. I don't really deal too much in the budget process because we have a very good court executive officer in Frankie. But he and I talk a lot about the process, and I can say that thanks to Leonard and Summer, you guys make us feel like we're heard, and you're open to any of the suggestions and conversations we want to raise about this. So that's my pitch. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. On to the slides. Okay. All right, so as far as the budget reduction plan for district court, to go through this, the total budget for district court is about $8.5 million. Part of that is for therapeutic courts. That includes our treatment sales tax that's allocated, as well as the jurisdictional funds. These jurisdictional funds are the restricted funds that were established by the board in support of the contracted jurisdictions that come into the court. And like Judge Buckley said, a lot of appreciation for Leonard and Summer and Jennifer. I mean, we spent a lot of hours, a lot of days going through what these jurisdictional funds look like to make sure that they're transparent, open, and really effective in how we're managing the budgets and recognition of the rate studies that are coming in and all the services that we're providing to the cities. For 2027, the estimated base budget for a general fund alone is at about $3.2 TARGETED REDUCTION AT ABOUT 126,000, AND THEN SCENARIO THREE TARGETED REDUCTION AT ABOUT 309,000. AS FAR AS WITH ANY REDUCTION SCENARIOS, WHICH WE'LL SEE ON THIS NEXT SLIDE, ANYTHING BASED OFF OF OUR CURRENT ALLOCATION, IT'S GOING TO BE STAFFING RELATED. When we're looking at the 2026 appropriation, it's about $3.5 million. You'll see that a large portion of this, probably much different than you've seen from the other offices and departments, is in Interfunds. Like I said, we're working through the rate studies right now. I expect that this number is going to change as we get through that process. Right now, the focus has been for the primary services through staffing. Operational, it did say operational discretionary. I took out discretionary because within our operational, that is primarily our interpreter services, which are required as well as pro tem costs. So that's what that includes. Like I said, for reduction scenario two, the target reduction was about $126,000. We've identified about $209,000 through this process. I'm going to jump around a little bit before I get into the actual positions and the reductions and talk about that first bullet point, which is the revenue piece. Because that's an interesting one, right? As we start changing the model of what cost recovery, full cost recovery looks like with the jurisdictions. I remember before a few years ago when we had the budget reduction that impacted probation and we came in here and I didn't have to let the board know that we'll have a revenue reduction of $250,000 and a million dollar ongoing impact. And then Commissioner Menser rightly so jumped in there and said, where does this come from? And that's where the fun part was previously, as we had a series of data points and a series of models and formulas that we had to plug all these into to get this number and then start associating that with known assumptions. Now with this new model, we can start looking at this in a much more clear picture. It's workload, right? Court workload. Based off of that percentage workload, About half of that is county, half of it is for contracted jurisdictions. So now we can start looking at that with a more clear picture as far as what staffing is. If half of the workload is for contracted jurisdictions, then half of that salary essentially would be those jurisdictional funds, right? Those revenues that would otherwise be received by the cities. So that's where that revenue piece comes in, is about half of each of these would be otherwise paid for by the cities. As far as looking at the reductions, the first option within this, what we would end up doing is reclassifying our court support manager to a court assistant two position. This would be essentially demoting that position. What it would impact is obviously capacity within our executive leadership, myself, our court operations officer, we're gonna have to take on that workload. Provide a lot more direct support for line staff and day-to-day operations. There will be, naturally reduced ability to be responsive. As in right now, while we're sitting here talking with the board, I can't respond to anybody that's in the courtroom or at the front counter that has any issues that come up. And in addition to that, management positions are also looking at all of our caseload management, making sure that we're keeping up on that, analyzing trends, and making sure that we're being strategic and how we're addressing all the cases that are coming to the court. Again, that would end up falling on most often myself, court operations officer. We've come quite adept at using our early mornings and late nights to run numbers. That's the best time to do it. But what this option does do is it allows us a little bit of foresight. I really appreciate the opportunity to share our e-briefs and send out messages and ongoing conversations that we have with everybody. One of the points in that that we're looking at is next year we have the new case management system that's coming on with the court. So we're trying to be strategic in any reduction effort to if we're gonna have this reduction, what can be our response to ensure that we, at least to a minor extent, can mitigate any of those issues that will come up in the future? And that's what this opportunity ends up providing. We may be losing that court support manager, but we know that there is going to be need for our court assistant twos within the courtroom.

Frankie? Yeah. Do you mind like expanding on that, right? I think just for the public's sake. I was at Superior Court when we did the transition to the Odyssey program and it was very painful to say the least. There was just a lot that went with it. And then the district court was supposed to happen pretty soon after, but the Odyssey program was not made for district court. And it's been years where they've been trying to fix issue after issue after issue that's come up with this program. And so now it's being implemented and there are still, from what I read, a lot of issues that are going to be pretty relevant in this new system. And so there's going to be a lot of impacts, not only for the staff training piece, but also from the community trying to access information and that piece. And so, you know, just, WAS HOPING MAYBE YOU COULD.

YEAH, ABSOLUTELY. SO YOU'RE RIGHT, IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. I'VE BEEN INVOLVED IN THAT PROJECT FOR OVER A DECADE NOW. There was an intent to move forward with it a long time ago. They ended up working through all those issues and contract points. And by they, I mean Tyler Technologies that runs the Odyssey program. For us, it'll be Enterprise Justice and the Administrative Office of the Courts. What they ended up doing is essentially high-level version. They took that Odyssey product and made configurations to it to best meet the needs of most for our court level. That's always the intent because it's a commercial off the shelf product. It's not like our current system that was designed by AOC specifically to fit the needs of the courts. So with that, what they do is they try to create the best approach that they can from their level to address the most courts. Where we see a lot of issues is were not all the same, right? There's some courts that have a single judge, maybe only one staff. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Thurston County, sixth largest county in court for our level in the courts. So that's where the efficiency issues start coming in. I've had regular contacts with many court executive officers across the state that have implemented And what we're hearing quite regularly is just the time it takes to move through the system is one of those biggest impacts. So for instance, where one of our staff may go in and enter for prosecution on a DUI, right now within our system, In the new system, it's taken about 35 to 40 minutes for a single case. So those are the impacts that we're seeing across the board. For others that are using the system, it's really that time. Right now, our staff, if they are in court in the morning, we try to keep them out in the afternoon so they can do all their administrative work on the back end. What we've been talking to with other courts afternoon, not for four hours, but for at least a day, possibly a day and a half in order for them to be able to work through the system and get all the reporting into the system that needs to be there. So that's what we're contending with right now. The end of life, if you will, for JIS, our current system, is the end of 2027. AOC has funding to support the new project until the end of 2027. We're at the very, very end. We are as late as we possibly can be. We can't push it out any further because it's a state-provided system. They say, here you go, and we end up taking that. So that's what we're working through right now with that system. AOC doesn't have resources. AOC and that's where that contention relies and we can't share data if there's no need with the new system. Perhaps it's something that we can discuss in a couple years but right now we have to look at the EJ system just because we don't have the ability to transition with the lack of resources on the state end as well.

And we're last by request. We did not want any part of being early in this process because we experienced so it but right now this is something that we don't have any control over it's going to be the case management system we have to adopt so that's problematic and you know some of the impacts that frankie's talking about is you know once that system's implemented those impacts will really rear their heads but we're already feeling some as different counties are going online with this system i've watched walking into Frankie's office almost every day for the last two weeks whining about something that's not working as well as it should as it had been two weeks ago because I think Snohomish County is coming, or they're about to come online. Some other counties have come online. It's just slowing everything down. So our ability in the courtroom, besides the clerks having to do case by case, it's just slowing the judges down. Stuff's not opening up. We have to wait and wait and wait. it's a real impact we're gonna feel. And it's gonna get worse as we get closer to implementation.

To continue on with scenario two, the other options presented here are transfer of positions from general fund to treatment sales tax. We have a care coordinator position right now that resides within general fund. transferring that over the treatment sales tax would save about $130,000. And then what we've also identified too with our mental health probation is that we can take a portion of that and split that expenditure through treatment sales tax as well as that probation manager oversees the mental health probation and intensive supervision probation officers.

And on the care coordinator piece, so you understand the connection, care coordinators are the Essentially, they're the probation officers for mental health court and veterans court. That's why it would be appropriate under TST funding to support those activities. And they do a great job. I could start banting on the job they do, but you're not here to hear that today.

So are you guys targeting 209 in terms of trying to account for the fact that there's revenue essentially?

No. To be honest, the 209, because it's not 126, because we recognize that this is an effort for the entire county. It's all offices and departments. If we're going to be able to identify where we can have cost savings, we're going to do that. So I understand that we can sit there and come in with just the one position transferred over and walk out of here. But we want to, again, be strategic in our approach and

Such a novel approach, I would not assume.

I mean, honestly, we recognize the difficulties you all have in looking across the county and saying that's what I was talking about, where you get to make strategic choices. We might as well let you know what all the facts are, how you can make those choices. And we can work with even up to 209. So we thought you should know that when you're making your decisions.

And I see that we're running low on time, but that is okay because the scenario three is pretty similar to scenario two. The main difference is number one. So as opposed to reclassifying that court support manager position to the court assistant two, essentially we'd lose that position. So it would be the same impacts with the loss of that manager. And similarly to scenario two, these are the fund transfer options for the general fund over to TST.

So just to kind of clarify the move to treatment sales tax, until we have identified that there's space in the treatment sales tax to absorb that fund switch or?

That's still something, I had a conversation with Leonard and then Summer, and we did an initial review of it. I believe county still wants to go through just to verify what those are. I don't wanna speak to anything that's outside my experience, but I have all trust in Summer and her team in identifying and confirming that that would be an option. Commissioner Fournier.

I always appreciate the way you guys approach things. So thank you for coming here in the way that you did today. And then complimenting us on strategic thinking, I want to compliment you on strategic thinking. Your willingness and ability to step up and work with us to bring on the Olympian Municipal Courts, that was huge. And that you guys are a great example for every other office in the county. So thank you. Yesterday we were talking about pre-trial services, and it was mentioned that pre-trial services weren't offered as something to district court in previous years. And then it was mentioned that now we've taken on municipal courts, and pre-trial services are being offered to municipal courts as well. And I know there's lots of levers, and when you start pulling them, they affect things that we don't always know. I'm curious, like, what pretrial services means to district court and, you know, what, you know, how, how the interplay works with you guys and that, and that service.

Because if I could just back, please, because one of the, you know, one of the scenarios that they presented was that they might have to cut staffing to a point that would affect district court service. So hearing it from your side would be helpful.

Sure. Um, we're not heavy. We don't, heavily, or maybe if at all, rely on pretrial services for bail studies. Frankly, I don't know if they've stopped providing them to us already, but I very rarely have looked at a pretrial services bail study. Not that it's not worthwhile, but we have other indicia that we use to determine what a bail amount should be for somebody who's in custody, and we're making that determination. And honestly, the default position of district court on bail is to release You know, somebody has to earn bail in order to have us impose it. So we don't use their bail study. What we do use is their monitoring. So we put people on pretrial conditions. And if it involves chemical dependency issues, maybe it's a scram through County-funded friendship program, which we're about to run out of money for. Through the what? Say that again? The friendship program, which allows the scram alcohol monitoring. The county's paying for that for people who don't have the funds to pay themselves. And that's been a huge boon to our ability to not hold people in custody who we might have to do so otherwise if we didn't have an efficient means of monitoring use when use is a major problem for them. Now, that's alcohol use. people for whom major use is a drug other than alcohol, that's a UA. And if that's what we see, we may order them to do UAs. And the funds have been paying for that as well. And then pretrial services comes in because those and report it to us. So they're the go-between. Probation that we have is only for post-disposition matters. So our probation officers let us know who, after sentencing, is having issues with their sentencing conditions. Pretrial services is the one who lets us know what's going on before we have a disposition in the case about pretrial release conditions.

With the pretrial services, with their last cuts, we did end up pulling back some of that supporting structure. Carrie was absolutely fantastic. After our last budget situation, I met with her and we kinda worked out where we can best utilize the services that they're able to provide within the resources that they have. or DUIs specifically. So it's now limited to that. Prior, it was a little bit more expanded, but with their resource issues, we kind of had to narrow that down a little bit so that we can ensure that we're not overloading them from the district court side.

Thank you.

Are you going to change topics?

Yes. Can I just ask one follow-up?

Yes, of course. So just what came up with pre-rural services that was just like, you know, when Olympia comes on board, whatever, a third of that half. But that's a big chunk. And pretrial services wasn't included in our cost recovery in terms of that. But yet they were folded into your caseload and being treated, as we were learning, being treated kind of dissimilarly. We don't have one way for county defendants and one way for municipal defendants.

So there seemed to be a gap there potentially. I think that... as we kind of talked about a little bit yesterday, there is an aspect of it But is it full cost recovery? That's the work we still need to do. So I think there's opportunity for us as we're going through this process and bringing that full cost recovery online that we sit with pretrial services with Carrie. And I think the bigger conversation that I know our assistant county manager is already having with Carrie is, are there ways to recuperate costs? And she put that into her presentation. looking at what the jurisdictions are paying, because it's per, in some cases, the old methodology was a per case rate, and changing that to the full cost recovery methodology is, I think, where there's opportunities to see costs recovered for pretrial services.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions. I've been asking everyone this, is just how many employees are currently under district court?

THOSE ARE TREATMENT SALES TAX.

THANK YOU. AND THEN YOU'VE TOUCHED SLIGHTLY ON IT BUT I DIDN'T SEE IT ON THERE AND I KIND OF WANT TO HIGHLIGHT SCRAM BECAUSE IT'S BEEN, IT'S DEFINITELY A PRIORITY FOR THE BOARD WHEN IT CAME UP AND WE WERE ABLE TO DO IT WITH ARPA FUNDS AND I THINK IT'S SHOWED It's been proven how well it's gone, and just from what I've heard from different partners, just the benefit of it. Can you talk about that impact of losing, scrambling going back to the way it was, and kind of that just impact to people, impact of people going through the system? Because I think it's very important to highlight if we're not able to find other ways.

It's not a great situation. SCRAM is really important to us. Prior to having the funding provided by the county for those who can't afford SCRAM, and not everybody gets county-funded SCRAM. If they have a private council, they're probably going to be paying for their own SCRAM device. Or if they're somehow got court-appointed council, but they have some substantial income, they'll probably pay. But Life prior to the funding from the county was we would order scram because we need this person being regularly monitored based on their alcohol-related history. And then the defense counsel says my client can't afford scram, which is, I think, like $15 a day or something when you're doing it on the market. It's probably more expensive now. And then we... are faced with this dilemma. We feel bad about trying to take somebody's resources that they don't have. On the other hand, public safety would mandate that something be done. So the court was frequently left in making a decision between keeping the person in jail, which obviously is pretty expensive on a daily basis, or getting them to do UAs. We started saying, OK, go do UAs. You know, where are they going to do the UAs if they're not in treatment and we can't order them into treatment pretrial? Who's going to really monitor their performance in UAs? And then can we order random UAs or can we only order UAs if we have suspicion at that time that they're using? And so it weaves into what pretrial services provides us as well. So that's the dilemma we face when we don't have that SCRAM device which we can just put on. The other thing, just from a defendant's standpoint, it's really been intriguing to me how many defendants say in court, I really like having a scram device because it reminds me I can't do the things that I have done in my past, and it's really helpful. So if somebody's on a scram device for one month or two months, sometimes we'll take it off and say, okay, I think the pattern has been set, and then we don't see any problems. further use, you know, in the short term. So it's effective both ways. It's not just always monitoring them. It's sometimes just having it on as a behavior modification tool. And it really seems to be effective in that way.

Did we get, like, you know, it's $119 a day, is that what we heard from Kerry? So, and you said $15 on the market. Do we get some kind of deal because, I mean, are we paying $15 a day to put someone on scram, or do we get some kind of discount because we're doing it in bulk as a government agency?

You're bundling the casket over.

Yeah, come on.

As far as with how it's set up, friendship is kind to us, and that's what we're seeing on the market right now with inflation and everything else going on. You see it everywhere that costs for these services are constantly increasing. So friendship diversion has been keeping those rather stagnant for us. So is there a cost savings to that extent?

But it's still $104 a day difference at the least. And if somebody, that's just money. And then of course there's the actual morality of incarcerating somebody that doesn't really need that level of

I can't afford it.

So I mean, there's a lot of different values. There's a lot of good reasons why that's a good deal for us to invest in.

If they're on scram, they're not in jail, which means maybe they can be self-motivated to go start treatment.

Yeah.

It's definitely an equity issue. For me, I see it as taking a step back. And I know when... we had the benefit of ARPA. It was like one of the first things. I know I spoke with Frankie quite a bit on how we were going to make this work. And we were so lucky that, you know, we were able to make it work.

We wanted to do it before that, but we just couldn't find the money. We just couldn't find the money. We kept tossing. As you guys know, it came up over and over again because we're like, is there a way? Is there a way? And then ARPA created that way. It's only temporary. But now it's reaching. And that's what we're highlighting is that there's this thing to be to be addressed.

So we've encouraged our direct judicial partners, the prosecutor's offices, the defense counsel, that this isn't stress to them. This is really important to them. Obviously, defense counsel would prefer their clients not being in custody. So they should be really interested in making sure there's ability for their clients to go on scram. And the prosecutor is the same. you know, it doesn't do any good to lock a whole bunch of people up who otherwise could be out. And if they're out because we don't want to lock a whole bunch of people up, how do we maintain public safety? The prosecutor should have an interest in that too. So from both standpoints, I would think all the agencies involved in the criminal justice system would support whatever funding can be provided for those monitoring.

Josh, just for clarity. Thank you for making this so transparent on those options. If, in recognizing you're gonna do some more research on whether or not treatment sales tax has capacity for the transfers. But if the transfers happen and the work continues, is the revenue lost?

Because the, and that's a conversation that the county's having right now. Within the rates, TST, that funding source, isn't charged to the cities.

Okay.

So where, if it's general fund and that jurisdictional fund, you charge the cities for that, but once it resides within TST, you wouldn't be charging the cities for that amount. Okay.

Thank you. Okay, anything else for District Court? I'm curious how much is available in TST and if there is like available money to shift around, would that SCRAM funds be eligible to be used?

We're working on that TST conversation. We know that it's already a bit stretched, so working to find what those different uses might be is, we're doing that right now.

And I want to be very, as a previous member of the TST board, I think that there's a group of people that make those decisions, or we appoint people to make those decisions about how that funding gets spent, and We also have to protect the funding that goes out to our community because there is a portion of the funding that goes out to the community for community grants. It's very important for a lot of the projects that we do. And so just keeping that in mind. That's exactly the work that we're doing.

Yeah.

You're totally right.

Thank you, Commissioner.

We can come back and talk to the board about that in detail. I think it's warranted. So we'll put that on our radar to do.

But there is often, I saw it in the time that I was there, there was often funding left. So, you know, there is some discretionary amounts in there, and so I'm interested in seeing that. Yeah, we'll see.

But they advise us. Ultimately, we decide. Yeah, they advise us. They make really, you know, good decisions and good advice, but ultimately we decide. Okay, thank you, District Court. Thank you all so much. Good time. Prosecuting attorney is up next. I know I'm a little on the air, but that was a good question.

I'm sure Christy's gonna tell you really good things about Scram. Yes, okay, we'll ask her if we're on the spot.

Jail, everybody take a 1% haircut, fund Scram.

I mean, that's kind of what he was kind of getting at. We all then, all those, keep your bodies in.

Okay, I'm going to apologize in advance, but I watched a couple of the presentations yesterday. Were they riveting? What? Were they riveting? They were riveting, so much so that I felt I want to give a little more information to maybe answer some anticipated questions based on questions that you answered. How many employees are in the prosecutor? I've got that one ready. I'm ready on that one.

There you go.

So these were generated based on yesterday. Okay, very good.

information that we're handing out to the clerk? Yes. Yes. Yes.

The public won't be able to. Yeah, no, we'll make that available. And I obviously if I know the questions in advance, I probably would.

Okay, so this is just a supplement.

Yeah, it's a supplement. No, we've done the exercise that you asked us to do. And so and followed in that in that direction and just good afternoon, appreciate you all. Here we are with what, how many more departments do you have left in the elected score? 40. All right, you're almost home stretch. So I don't know how many of you know, Wendy Ireland is in our new role. So do you wanna introduce yourself to the board? Yeah, Wendy Ireland, I'm our Administrative Services Manager. Congratulations.

You had big shoes to fill, Heidi Prada.

Both of us have big shoes to fill. So please, we're new at this, so let us know what else we can do. That's why we're trying to accommodate the information you need. We know every decision is going to be tough. What you need, I think, from us is giving you information from what impacts any decision might make would make to the public ultimately, right, from our office. And that's kind of like the highest level of what it means. And so that's what I'm here to try to provide to you as best I can. So with that, let's go into number two. And so, you know, you have given us with the total budget, our general fund, 2027 estimated base budget is just over 13 million as you see there. and gave us a target reduction scenario for number two, which would be 518,839, and target reduction scenario three, because we were able to have so many funds reduced from the biennial budget, 26, 27, primarily utilizing capacity in the public safety sales tax, that would encompass, so obviously our first choice would be scenario number three for the prosecutor's office. That's not a surprise by any means. So that is, I'll just get that one kind of off the table. But on number two, what I wanted to share with you, what our process was when we received the information from Leonard, was really to look at, we were in the process. We've had some people leave, we've had some people retire. and vacant positions over the summer that we were in the process of filling, and we just put a freeze on that right now for this, put a hold for this process. We want the commissioners to be able to give us accurate information about what we are going to have as a personnel office going forward, and didn't want to have anybody that we were in the process of hiring have to say, no, I'm sorry, your position's let go as of January 1. So with that, we're in a freeze position. Our office is not super excited about that, because you have additional maternity leaves and other things involved in that. But we are absolutely doing our best and hope that the commissioner will come to an equitable solution as soon as possible, understanding you've got a lot of challenges in front of you. So let's move to the next slide, because that's actually, before we do that, I apologize. Our reduction scenario is, and I say, four to six FTEs. The reason for that is because, as I indicated, we've got a few different positions that are vacant right now that I've held on proceeding with the interviews. We actually do have people in the queue. We actually were interviewing in one process, and we had to indicate to those applicants that we, based on the budget situation with the county, were going to be doing a pause and proceeding once we had a better direction of where we were going. But that's a mixture of both deputy prosecutor assisting positions as well as paralegals and legal assistant positions. And so obviously those are all different ranges as far as salary ranges. And so the puzzle pieces really align depending on what you end up providing us with if we end up going in scenario number two. What I think the next steps would be, if we were to have to do this type of cut, what I would do is pull the executive team together. We'd look at our puzzle pieces as far as pieces as far as deputy prosecuting attorneys, legal assistants, paralegals, and try to figure out the most effective way to do it without doing the least amount of damage to public safety for Thurston County, is I guess the high-level way to say it. So that's why I didn't say this position, this position, this position. We have some flexibility. We could do all deputy prosecutors. We could do all legal support staff. We most likely would do a combination of the two, but that's where we are as far as that. I just, I didn't know if you were concerned that I'm not giving you, I'm not able to give you position numbers because I got flexibility there. Okay. Let's go to the 2026 appropriation. So without grants, so this is without grants, our current 2026 appropriation is the 12.7 million, which is the pie chart that you see in front of you. Obviously, the great majority is our salaries and benefits, internal service costs, and a very, very small piece, and it says 2% is our very, discretionary, operational discretionary. And just to, I guess to put a fine note on that, it's actually when you incorporate our public safety sales tax positions, which also use the same operational discretionary as far as training expenses, utilization of our copy machines, utilization of our pens and paper, those are not part of the general fund salaries and benefits before you because they're in a public safety sales tax salaries and benefits. So our true cost to our office percentage of operational discretionary is actually 1.48%. So it is, I would say to you, we are being very efficient with county resources. We are very to the nub. I don't know if you could get much lower than 1.48% of operational and discretionary. So scenario number two. without the 2026 reduction and the reduction target. As I've indicated, it would be approximately a 5% to 8% reduction in staffing levels. We currently have 83 FTEs in total. That's a combination of both general fund, public safety sales tax, and victim advocate fund for those 83 FTE full-time positions. What I wanna explain though is what impact, what I think is important for you to know is the slide regarding the back load and backlog, excuse me. Yeah, second page of the handout. The felony black log change over time and I wanted to make sure that the, Commissioners understood that we're really focusing on this is not a COVID backlog. The COVID backlog, for all intents and purposes, has finally been addressed and gone through. But with our current, if nothing changed, if our current staffing stayed exactly the same for the prosecutor's office across the board, I think this is going to tell you the story of what would happen. We have incoming, the incoming is green, is the green chart. Those are arrests, those are referrals, those are any type of criminal case that's coming into the prosecutor's office. It's coming from the sheriff's office, Olympia Police Department, Tumwater Police Department, Lacey, Young, you get the idea. And, oh yeah, thank you. Also, felony only. We don't have the same level of discretion in misdemeanors, and you probably heard that already, so I don't need to go into too much detail from district court, but the majority of our district court cases are charged by the officer at the scene. So it's not the incoming need of time to review. There's a small portion of district court cases that come in that are generally the lower level assault for domestic violence cases that an officer might refer and that we review and spend time, but it's much lower And also, you've heard a great deal about our data dashboard. We're extremely proud of that. But we now are able to give you real data. But our data dashboard is exclusive to felony. Also important, though, because as your commissioners looking in public safety for Thurston County, you also have obviously touched City of Lacey, City of Tumwater, City of Olympia, because all of their felony cases come to our office as well. So that's just kind of a coverage overlap. Because this is the felony backlog change over time, as I indicated, you can see, I guess what we're trying to show is that little blue cases in current backlog, those are all felony cases that we are not able to get to. And it's slowly growing, right? So if you look at, I mean, we had a slight dip between 23 and 24. which I think is great, but it did grow in 25 and we're on pace. If you look at from year to date, August 31st, where the blue line is, we're on pace to exceed the backlog in 2026, meaning from cases in, cases reviewed, and what's not. What's important for you to know is that blue line represents Thurston County residents who are victims of felony crime. It We are doing our best in our office to prioritize violent crime and crimes against person, our special victims, domestic violence, and we're also doing our best to use our innovative justice resources, treatment sales tax, courts. We're talking about drug court, mental health court, veterans court, family services court, any court, any type of diversion, pretrial services diversion, you talked about friendship diversion, anything we can get out of the traditional criminal process we are working on. We are also, again, focusing on the most important dangerous cases to Thurston County residents are the ones that we're putting our efforts. So what's happening is there's still a growing backlog of cases. It's potentially, what's in here is potentially taking motor vehicles where there's no injury to the person, but the car is stolen. It could be a lower level burglary, maybe a Class C burglary where there were no firearms and no, it's not an assault, you know, it's not rising to the level of a robbery, something where there's, it's a higher level danger, but you still have a victim. You still have someone who's lost some property. And if we're not able to get to these cases for majority of the Class C felonies, and that's kind of the bulk of what we're looking at here in this backlog, within three years of statute of limitations, the cases are never charged. And we're not able to charge those. Yes?

So does the blue represent the gap between the purple and the green?

Oh, well, part of that is because of the COVID backlog, because we did have a different group that we had to take out of there because we still had, it still was considered COVID in 2020.

But in spicy blue, it means that you received the case, but you didn't review the case. It's sitting there. It's still there waiting to be reviewed. Absolutely.

And that's what you're calling backlog. Correct.

And is that so? And so like for 2026, that's just the blue backlog that doesn't represent the cumulative, like there might be some 25 holdover?

Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, I would say in that 2026 year to date, you've identified a very good question. There's probably cases from 24 in that group. I mean, we obviously try to look at the older ones. We try to catch the ones as much as possible before, before they get in there, right? Before it gets close to that three year limit. And I'll give you another example of how we're really trying to focus on using our limited resources on the cases that are doing the most danger to people in Thurston County. And here's an example. We're trying to be very creative with how we assign deputy prosecutors. And with one of our public safety knew that you gave us this year appropriation from PSST to add a deputy prosecutor, rather than adding that position exclusively to our district court team, which needed it, and they needed it, we chose to split it between our district court team and our special victims team. Now I know you're like, what? Special victims team? They're the most experienced, or they're very experienced working it. But what we have exclusive to our special victims team are sex offender registration violation cases. Felonies. Not hands-on, not new crime as far as a new victim, but there's someone who's failed to register. And depending on level of registration, one, two, or three, more dangerous or not to the community in different times, right? Those cases are correct. Not as complex of a prosecution. Absolutely. So what we are doing is having one person, a person ready to start doing felony cases. So Scott has one foot in district court, one foot in felony court. And those cases also typically never go to a jury trial. If they go to a trial, they go to a bench trial because it's on a technical matter because no sex offender wants to go to a jury where the first thing the prosecutor is going to say in an opening statement is, He is a sex offender. And now we're going to show why he didn't register or failed to register, right?

I did exactly zero sex offender registrations.

You can attest to that, right? So for all those reasons. But this is a good example of what we're trying to do. So we've got 240 backlog cases just of sex offender registrations. Don't you think that's important out of all of these other backlog cases? If I'm a resident of Thurston County, and I am, I'd be like, that's what I want to focus on. So we're going to have, we have somebody now starting, actually starting Tuesday, day after Labor Day, working exclusively on that backlog case. And those are, once you get into the routine, I am confident we'll be able to get through those very quickly, but we're not going to lose any to statute of limitations because we're catching those. And we're already doing that right now, quite frankly, with our two overloaded full-time special victims attorneys. They know, once a week, they go to make sure nothing's, getting lost as far as statute of limitations, catching those and charging where we're needed on those. But we want someone just full time to get that so we can get that out of the backlog. And that'll make a little dent in what you're seeing here because that's quite a bit of those cases in the backlog. That being said, I just wanted to use that as an example of where we're trying to be strategic, trying to be efficient with our resources. looking at what is most important, I think, to the public. You can't do everything. You're not going to be able to do everything. But what is the most important to keep people the most safe? So what you need to know in front of you is that if we stay flat, we continue to have people working beyond what a normal office and the prosecutors would have. Essentially, just a refresh from the 2025, our caseloads are higher than other attorneys by a long shot in the county. We understand there is a difference in court ruling for public defense than there is for prosecution. That being said, it doesn't mean that someone can now do 200% or 150% of when somebody else is and do a good job at it as far as protecting. So that's simply just, The first sheet is just a reminder about the workload and that apples are not apples as far as the attorney workload in the office. That being said, with our office right now, what this backlog change over time tells you is that if we stay flat, it would be hard to imagine that this will not stay about the same, the backlog. There will always be some cases, felony cases, that we will not be able to address. We will do our best as attorneys and our staff is amazing at doing our best of focusing on the most dangerous and most impactful criminals in Thurston County. But that's what it is. And we also do our best to get rid of cases that should not be handled in the traditional justice system when people can get assistance on their mental health or substance abuse and never become a criminal again. So we're doing all of those things, but only at some point you reach capacity. So any reduction, whatever the commission ends up deciding that would affect directly our office would, I mean, by common sense means that potential backlog would increase. I can't imagine that it would decrease by what, you know, I don't know by what amount. So Those are, I think that's the information, you know, from my understanding from watching you yesterday asking questions, I think that's the information you were trying to gain from other departments. What would this impact, if this cut, mean to your office? That's what I can tell you. That's what the impact would mean for the prosecutor's office. And as far as the other areas in part in the justice system, All I you know, many of these cases that are in that blue line that are not addressed. Some of those are arrest by the sheriff's office. Some of those are arrest by other agencies in Thurston County. And we would be in a position where we say unfortunately, we didn't have resources to charge that case.

Thank you.

I'll be quick. Question I've been asking everyone is just what is your staff? How many staff do you have currently? Eighty-three. And then you didn't touch on it. I think you focused on the criminal side, right? But the PAO's office also has the civil side as well as the juvenile court side. you know, would there be any impacts to those areas?

We are feeling, we've looked at the numbers, and right now, I mean, I'm probably preaching to the choir in this group, with our civil staff, we don't feel that we can make any reductions in our civil staff for not only for the commissioners, but for every department in Thurston County. We feel that everybody there is absolutely at max, maximum capacity, and I would say the same for our family support staff, our juvenile, and our conviction review unit.

Okay, thank you. That was a good question and a good question. Yeah. Anything else for the prosecuting attorney? Thank you. Thank you. Sheriff's office is up next. Let me see where we're going to go next. Corners on deck. Corners on deck. All right, we've got about 20 minutes-ish. The floor is yours, Chair.

All right, I think we're starting with the Law Enforcement General Fund reduction. I WANT TO TAKE JUST A COUPLE MINUTES TO GO BACKWARDS A LITTLE BIT. SO ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT WE'RE HAVING, I THINK, STILL IS, AS EVERYONE KNOWS, TC CONNECT IS FAILING. SO AS WE GO THROUGH OUR BUDGET PROCESS, AND LAST YEAR THERE WERE A LOT OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE BUDGET PROCESS, AND THIS IS WHAT I WOULD SAY, IS THAT THERE'S ABOUT TWO WEEKS TO COME UP WITH THESE NUMBERS, AND I'M HERE TO TELL YOU THAT'S NOT ENOUGH TIME. SO WHAT YOU'RE SEEING TODAY ISN'T EVEN NECESSARILY WHAT WE WOULD DECIDE TO CUT. WITH TWO WEEKS TIME, WE BASICALLY GOT TO HAVE A CHANCE TO SIT TOGETHER AND SAY, OKAY, If we had to decide right this moment, what would we cut potentially? These are the numbers. It's FTEs. With more time, we would sit down and probably shift things around like we did last year, which is kind of what happened, right? We said, hey, this is what we cut. We actually finally got our cut number. That's what allowed us to say, okay, let's really dial down and say, what are we going to shift? What can we shift? Which led to some creativity with the budget and allowed to save us a couple positions. What we're presenting today is basically two weeks' worth of head notice of this is what we'd cut. It doesn't mean this is what we would necessarily cut in October or December or November once we have more time to dial down what is actually our cut target, which we know is shifting, and that's kind of what. So this is all preliminary, and I say that because I know I have staff watching. So I know staff are going to be watching this saying, oh, I'm getting laid off. And that's not the case. We are trying to present FTEs that are basically prioritized within the office to deliver core services and then figure out where to go from there. the TC connect piece is a challenge because we are still missing money from our budget. We still have a crediting issue going on. We're working with the budget, with the budget team at the County. Um, earlier this year we had a little over $2 million missing from our budget. So we had trouble with projections and things like that. So we're coming into another budget cut exercise and we don't actually really fully understand where our current budget sits. The numbers are still very, very soft. So going into the law enforcement, a general fund reduction, um, So our total 2027 budget for law enforcement, this is all funds, including the public safety sales tax is 38.6 million. Um, we've got two scenarios. One was a 1.2 million cut. The other is a $1.5 million cut. Um, as we move into scenario two, um, the first AREA OF CUTS WOULD BE APPROXIMATELY A LITTLE OVER $1 MILLION. THIS WOULD BE A CUT TO A CIVIL DEPUTY. WE CURRENTLY HAVE THREE CIVIL DEPUTIES. THEY'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROTECTION ORDER SERVICE, RITZ OF THE COURTS, EXECUTING ORDERS OF THE COURTS. THEY'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVICTIONS. THE UNIQUE PART ABOUT THIS IS IT'S AN RCW REQUIREMENT THAT THE SHERIFF IS REQUIRED TO PROVIDE FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTY. THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES. SO THE CITIES DO NOT DO EVICTIONS. THEY DON'T DO THESE TYPE OF OPERATIONS. IT FALLS TO THE SHERIFF. SO THIS IS A COUNTY-WIDE REQUIREMENT. WITH With where we got with the public safety tax over the last couple years, we added a third deputy to this position. So this would be reducing us back down to two deputies for about 310,000 people who require this service. So this would likely result in delayed order service for protection orders. Evictions will take longer. This entire process will just get backlogged because there's not enough manpower to do the work. The second would be a narcotics task force detective. So similarly, we have worked to try to ramp up this unit. It's the narcotics task force. There's four detectives in there currently. This will bring us back down to three detectives. This is also work across the county because the cities are not participating in this task force, even though they have a massive drug problem. The city of Tumwater is looking to rejoin this task force next year. And so this would bring us back down to three detectives in this task force for all drug cartel level narcotics enforcement. They also do human trafficking enforcement, weapons trafficking enforcement, and stolen property enforcement. Why do the cities not participate in the narcotics task force?

You have to ask their councils.

I've talked to them at great length. And there's a disconnect right now. The council members all seem very supportive. And then somewhere in between the councils and the police chiefs, there's a disconnect of the elected seem interested, and then somewhere in the middle, the appointed are killing that effort. The next one is a cold case. When you say cities, it's all cities?

There are no cities who participate in the task force currently. Tumwater is committing to rejoining. Olympia does not. Lacey does not. Correct. We spend most of our time in the city of Olympia.

We have one cold case missing persons detective. So this position was added with the increased FTEs from the sales tax. So this detective ultimately is responsible for all of the cold cases in the county. as well as critical missing persons. So missing persons that have red flags. If we have like a missing indigenous person, a detective is responsible for following up and continuing to work on that case. So that position would be cut. Two domestic violence high-risk team detectives. They're responsible for all of our high-risk domestic violence investigations. These are new positions that came through the public safety sales tax. So these detectives are ultimately responding out. They actually work patrol shifts, which is kind of unique. That way they can go out in real time and help with some of these high lethality DV cases. One of the problems with cutting these positions, even though we're out of positions to cut, frankly, is that they are also tied to the funding from House Bill 2015, which requires some of the work they do. So the county would be at risk of losing all that funding. On the next page, continuing this discussion,

Can I ask you a question about that real quick? Yeah. The HP 2015 requirement connected to the two DV high-risk teen detectives, is that what you were meaning? It's connected. So if we were to lose those, we would potentially be out of compliance and lose all of that funding. If we cut both or if we cut one or which?

They're both doing the work. So the two detectives are working on each patrol team and they are managing all the data collection and work that is required by House Bill 2015 to do the lethality assessments.

Okay. So you wouldn't have, I'm just guessing it would be a capacity issue, but maybe it's a requirement. Like that work couldn't fall into other people to collect that data because of capacity or because of expertise or like, would there be another way to?

I think, I think both. And I think this is kind of the reason we're having these conversations is that historically the County just continues to pile more work on the same FTEs and their jobs become so broad that then they end up start to make mistakes and they start to mess things up. And I think that the real conversation that we're starting to have in the county is what services and things are the county, is the county just going to lose altogether? I just, I don't think it's sustainable to take five or two FTEs worth of work and pile it onto one employee and then pay them the same rate.

And they're already doing their own job. So yeah. Yeah.

And keep in mind, these detectives aren't just doing the data collection and stuff. They're doing the work. They're doing these. I mean, a lot of our homicides are domestic violence related. These detectives are going out and completing the domestic violence portion of that investigation. So they are multifaceted. They work with Safe Place. They work with Family Support Center. They're pulling additional details out at Family Support Center to interface with people who are living in sheltered lives and things like that. So it's a very successful program in a short amount of time. But the 911 response comes before these additional programs. And I seem to have lost myself just a little bit here. I'm sorry. So on to the continuation of scenario three is to unfund the accounting manager position. This is actually a position that's been vacant for quite some time. We've had a really hard time finding a quality person to fill this role. So this would be a position that we would cut. we would unfund training, travel, supplies, and vehicle costs at the cost of $196,000. And this is just basically a proportionate cut to the loss of those commissioned officers and deputies. So if you cut detective positions, you don't need to buy cars for them, obviously, is kind of how this has been calculated. So this is for the 2027 reduction target of $1.46 million. Any questions for the

Commission side of things law enforcement questions My brain went somewhere else when I thought you said County manager not a county manager, so Sorry we are not cutting the county You were connecting number two to the fact that if we did unfund the number one I

pieces we wouldn't need this equipment on the bottom what did you say because like yes we need these vehicles because they were cut if you were to cut these positions correct so it's a correlation to the positions that you cut so if you cut a deputy sheriff you don't need to pay for their equipment uniforms and vehicle anymore so you know a car is about fifteen thousand dollars a year per per deputy sheriff um so that we factored that into the fts that we'd lose okay so

Is this 94,000 number connected to the seven FTE here, or is it just connected to the whole scenario too? Like how many staff are represented by this? It's connected to all seven of the positions.

So there's a little bit for the accounting manager, obviously the accounting manager does not have a vehicle, but there's a little bit of training and travel, because every employee has some of that, as well as the crime analyst. The support staff positions, don't have uniforms, obviously, so their portion of that $94,000 is a lot smaller than the deputy's portion.

Okay, thank you so much.

So that $196,000, I'm sorry, represents one deputy?

No, it represents all the FTEs that we would lose in this budget cut exercise. and staff, so not just deputies. So let's say that you have three deputy sheriffs and an accounting manager. The accounting manager has a very small stipend because they get, you know, some training and travel funds attached to their FTE, right, because we've got to send them off to get their training that they need. The deputies, on the other hand, have a lot more because they've got to go to the basic law enforcement academy. They need a shield, a bulletproof vest, a helmet, a rifle, a handgun, handcuffs. They need all those different things. So the majority of this is we wouldn't, keep that in our budget if we lose those positions. We want that to count as part of our budget cut because you wouldn't cut four deputy or three deputies and then still buy three cars for deputies that can't drive them, if that makes sense.

$15,000 a year in the ER and R to replace those vehicles. So that's some of that, or actually quite a bit of that. Most of it. $100,000, is that right?

$196,000. $196,000, yeah. So it's basically saying we're going to cut the salary and benefits of a deputy. We would also want to cut the car that the deputy drives in, the equipment the deputy drives in. Those things are all funded. It's all part of the cost of the deputy.

So that's the total cost of one FTE.

Eight.

That's the total cost. It's a roll-up cost. All the other things that are not. Okay. The ancillary expenses connected to those.

Yeah, this is not broken down by FTE. deputies, it's broken down by if we unfund eight FTEs, $196,000 is all of their auxiliary equipment and training.

Thank you. I'll just, because I know we have the corrections piece, but I've been asking every office department this. How many staff in the LEO office?

$196,000. 158.5 for law enforcement. And for corrections, you can write it down. It's 118.5. Okay, let's go to corrections.

All right.

So for corrections... This is a $20.6 million total general fund appropriation. But the total of all funds combined, like the treatment sales tax, attention sales tax, is $29.7 million. Our two cuts, scenario two was $840,000 approximately. Scenario three was $620,000. I will tell you guys right now, for the corrections bureau, we are running on razor thin staffing. So we are at the point now where there is not much left to the corrections bureau. If everyone shows up to work and no one falls in sick, no one has a baby, no one's parents die, I've got a handful of people left over. So that tells you, I mean, one person goes out with a baby, one person gets injured, one person's on vacation, automatic overtime for those deputies to make up the difference. So there is very little left to the Corrections Bureau in terms of the minimum number of deputies that it takes to run the jail effectively. So for scenario two, we are looking at unfunding, overtime, training, travel, and supplies, and vehicle replacement costs. But I think that that's actually, I'm out of order just a little bit. That's the bottom. So same thing. This is that number at the bottom. I skipped ahead a little bit. The $79,000, it's the same concept. It's all of these FTEs, when they go. This is the auxiliary equipment and training and uniforms associated with them. For the Corrections Bureau, this would be the loss of three corrections deputies, one narcotics canine handler. He is basically our float, so he's handling canine talia and then filling in as needed throughout the jail, like we talked about when people are out and there needs to be transports or whatever. And obviously the canine is monitoring the jail for narcotics. We would lose our corrections recruiter, who's currently done a really good job of helping us revamp TCSO's recruiting process and getting applicants in the door. And we would lose our chemical dependency deputy. So this would effectively end all chemical dependency inside the jail. We would run our dorms and our max unit, and people would come to jail, and then they would either stay in jail or be released. We would also cut the training sergeant that we've implemented in the jail. So we actually pulled them from the floor. And this is the individual that has kind of completely revamped our retention and our training standards inside the jail. He's a full-time trainer. He is able to conduct remedial training for employees who are struggling so that we can get them back up to adequate standards instead of terminating them. And then it would also eliminate one captain position. Right now, my chief, Chief Havda, has two captains assigned to the jail. It's a very large operation when you start talking about inmate services, food, health care, the employees, the staffing. And so this would cut down to just one captain inside of the jail, which effectively is just eliminating half of our supervisory oversight. So that would be... THE LAST FTE IN THAT, AND THEN I SKIPPED AHEAD, BUT THEN ALSO THE REDUCTION OF THE ASSOCIATED COSTS FOR THOSE FTEs.

AT ONE POINT WE STUFFED THINGS FROM DETENTION SALES TAX. ANOTHER TIME WE WERE LIKE OVER, WE HAD TO PULL STUFF OUT OF THERE. IS EVERYTHING KIND OF EVEN-STEVEN WITH DETENTION SALES TAX OR HOW DOES THAT FIND LOOK IN TERMS OF ITS HEALTH OR CAPACITY? Yeah, but it tells me that you're looking into my question and we'll get some clarity soon.

I will say that detention sales tax is significantly higher than last year. Our allotment went up, so.

SO SCENARIO THREE IS VERY SIMILAR. IN FACT, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE, I BELIEVE, BETWEEN SCENARIO TWO AND THREE IS THAT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO KEEP OUR TRAINING SERGEANT. OUR TRAINING SERGEANT OUT OF THOSE FTEs WE BELIEVE IS PROBABLY THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND THE MOST IMPORTANT FOR BASIC JAIL OPERATIONS TO ENSURE THAT OUR STAFF ARE ADEQUATELY TRAINED, THEY'RE GETTING CASE LAW UPDATES, AND THAT, AGAIN, WE HAVE THAT ABILITY TO SAVE I believe that's the only difference between the two scenarios. Questions on corrections.

So you're saying that two weeks wasn't adequate and that this might not look the same if you had some more time to work on this? I mean, I'm wondering if we should get another crack at it or like how much time?

I need to know what my number is. Is this going to be my final number? If that's the case, then yeah, we'll start really cracking down. But you have to understand, too, this is where I think we get really concerned is that these are public meetings. So when you start telling me to crack down on what my final number is, it's starting the layoff process. So we're going to get that reputation as an unsafe employer that can't maintain its staff. And what I do not want to do is get to a point where we start giving layoff notices, and then come November, you're like, we found some money. Those employees have already put their applications in at other agencies now. And now I've got to rebuild everything. And now we come into the next year, right? And those are all vacant positions that then we're like, oh, well, we'll just have to cut those too because, you know, you can't fill them. So we're just under immense pressure to deliver core services, protect our employees. long-term reputation as a stable employer, and then also protect our employees. And I want to be fair to them. If they are getting laid off, they need as much notice as possible. If they're not getting laid off, there's nothing more cruel than telling them they are and causing all that stress and anxiety for them. So if this is my final number and it's not going to move, then we'll go back to work and we'll try to save everything we can. But there's only so much, I mean, We're kind of at the point where like, do I cut an FTE and lose an employee? Do I just cut all the overtime and then just hold FTEs vacant to cover the loss of overtime? Those are the conversations that we have to start having, but it doesn't, from the conversations I've had with everyone in the county, this doesn't sound like the final number. It sounds like an exercise. So that's what we're trying to, if you can give me like, this is what you're going to cut, then we'll go back and we'll start really drawing down on every single expense. But You know, for instance, our body scanner in the jail. That's a conversation we've recently had. I think, how much are we paying for ENR annually for the body scanner? I'm not sure what that ERR was. $25,000.

But there was a contract to repair, just a maintenance contract was $20,000 plus. I haven't been legally allowed to use it in a way that it's effective.

So it's already not, it's kind of a giant paperweight right now. So sure, we'll go back and we'll cut $25,000. If you look at these numbers, that's nothing. It didn't solve a single problem for us. So it's a lot of work to go through and start canceling these things and finding out every little thing that we'll cut and we'll do it. But I don't want to do all that and still give layoff notices anyways.

And then my second question, second follow-up question, is I think all the information's in there, but I would really like to know what the cost of one deputy is with all the ancillary costs, one unit, one human, what that, and I think it's all there. It's just, if you can dial that down with us.

Yeah, I don't have it right with me. Not right now. Yeah, I can get that.

I think this is going to be an ongoing conversation. It's approximately $158,000. THAT DEPENDS ON PAY SCALE.

THANK YOU, SHERIFF. UNDERSTANDING THAT THE TIME IS LIMITED, BUT I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO ENCOURAGE THE PIECE OF GOING THROUGH IF THERE ARE ITEMS WHERE YOU CAN CUT RIGHT NOW, RIGHT? I THINK THE BOARD IS GOING TO BE MAKING some preliminary discussions next week about which direction we're going to head in. But if there are things where you're noticing your budget, like the body scanner, for example, where it's not providing the full service that you thought. I would encourage those proposals coming forward because it helps us. Those are the cuts that we can make that won't have THE IMPACT THAT WHAT YOU'RE PROPOSING RIGHT NOW WILL HAVE. AND SO, YOU KNOW, IF, YEAH, I WOULD JUST ENCOURAGE IF THERE ARE ANY OTHER PIECES THERE, IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HAVE A LOT OF BODY SCANNERS ALL THROUGHOUT, RIGHT, AND IT'S GOING TO MAKE UP, BUT THERE ARE LITTLE THINGS LIKE THAT WHERE THERE'S OTHER TOOLS. PLEASE DO SEND THAT, YOU KNOW, SEND US that information because it really helps us as we're having to deliberate and make these decisions.

And just to be clear with the body scanner, we realize it doesn't work very efficiently and we are going to get some increased costs for a maintenance contract for the next several years. And we are having discussions with risk about that. Is the risk worth the reward that we're paying for on that? So I don't want SOMEONE TO TAKE THE, HEY, WE'RE CUTTING THE BODY SCANNER. WE HAVEN'T DONE ALL THESE THINGS, BUT WE ARE IN DISCUSSION. JUST AN EXAMPLE.

HOW MUCH DO WE PAY FOR THEM? THEY'RE LIKE $150,000. or 200-something thousand, I think. And they're a great tool. If we're allowed to use them correctly, they can scan if somebody's got systems and says they've got drugs inside their body. But the legislature put out a law that we had to dial them down to where they put out less radiation than a television. And so they're effectively useless to us. But they were a great thing to get. Were we allowed to use them? They saved lives. Yes.

So we wouldn't lose the body scanner. It would just get slid off to the corner and collect dust. So we already own the scanner. The scanner's paid for. What we're not going to pay for then is obviously the maintenance costs and things like that on the scanner and the ER and R costs to replace it at some point in time. But we also have to double back, like he said, with risk. So it's, it's identified as a potential cost saving solution, but it's so small and there's going to be lots of conversations just to get to the point where we're like, we'll cut that. There's, there's a lot of boxes to check before we get there. So again, that's where we, the most beneficial thing that I think every office and department can get right now is their final number. Because the final number last year, as we know, was so squishy. It changed all the way up to basically November. It changed. And And so then, and that's why I held off on telling our staff, you're terminated. You're getting laid off because the number feels so squishy. There's so much debate that goes on and whatnot. So I think that's just the piece. We can identify all the things. Like I can tell you right now, the accounting manager is a position that we're willing to walk away from right now. We'll give up that accounting manager position. It's $110,000. That's the savior out of a 1.6, 1.5. $6 million, $1.4 million reduction. So we have a lot more work. If that were just the one position, I'd come to you right now and say we're done.

We're good.

We've identified that. But the bigger the cut, the more vague we have to get without knowing because we just have to get FTEs to get there. There's no other alternative around it. We have to offer FTEs to get to that budget number.

What's the squish, though? Is that squishing down? Exactly. we could minimize the ultimate. I understand early information can be an issue, but I think when you weigh that out, being able to do everything possible to minimize the cut was the right thing for us to do, even if it took until November or December 18. If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. Commissioner Cox.

Thank you. Can we sell the scanner?

You can surplus it.

Would you get much back for it? You probably don't know off the top of your head, but.

I don't know is that it would be worth it. I mean, I think in the future we own the asset. If the legislature gets enough pressure and they change it, then it's a valuable tool to bring back because it did stop drugs from coming in. Oh, I know.

Trust me. Every time I tour the jail, it's the first thing we talk about because it's right there when you walk in. Yeah.

So you could surplus it. You'd probably get $50,000, which would.

And it was bought with carpet funds. We need to look at it.

Send it back to the feds.

And also, let's see, I wrote down agree when Commissioner Mejia was saying something. I think it was about the scanner. But what it led me to was I would like to see the program impacts for things like, if you look back at page four on the slide, talking about cutting the training sergeant, it would revert us back to the minimum amount of training. We're talking about cutting chemical dependency deputies. I would love to see the outcomes of individuals who have gone through the chemical dependency program. Because if we look at program effectiveness, that would really help me personally be able to like, because if I read it on here, it's like, this is, it sounds like absolutely terrible because, you know, this would plague the TCO, it's plagued TCO in the past. And, you know, all of these things that are like, that would be really bad. What about the good outcomes that currently exist because you have these resources? that would help me better identify, because everyone came in here today and told us the terrible things that would happen if we cut certain things. And it's true, but we're in a situation where we have to cut something somewhere. And if you were able to walk in and say, we've had our deputies complete, each deputy on average, 200 hours of training per year on these things, and we see what the outcomes are, for the training and the chemical dependency and other positive outcomes, that would help me with understanding the real impact of what we're cutting. So if you're able to put that information together, I would love to see that.

We should be able to. I don't think we could have gone over it today, even if you wanted to. I totally get it. Yeah, because you didn't have that much time. We'll get the information for our chemical dependency programs.

Yeah, cool. And then the last thing I had was... looking at like different cost saving measures. Earlier we heard a presentation, I think it was Central Services talking about the cost of fuel, or wait, that was yesterday maybe, talking about the cost of fuel and using the fuel island versus like fueling up elsewhere. And I can't imagine another office or department that has more need to fill up fuel than yours. Is it feasible to use the fuel island? Do you already do that with every vehicle?

Do you see a cost? It's not feasible, though. Because if you have someone that works in Yelm, it takes half an hour plus to get to the county shop. You're burning more fuel trying to get there and back. There was more locations. It'd be feasible. But Tilly Road, just having Tilly Road is not feasible time-wise or distance or anything like that. Yeah. They said that. Perfect.

And I think I missed part of some of the presentations yesterday, but what is the cost of a gallon of gas on average if we use the fuel island? Do we know?

I thought they said there was like a $0.13 difference or something.

Oh, that's not, OK. Yeah, it's not very much, quite frankly.

especially when you consider the drive time, right? We encourage our deputies to stay in their districts because it's a large county. We're not like a city. The city, of course, does not have these types of issues. Everyone can go to Pacific and College and Lacey, fill up, and then drive to Martin Way in three minutes. For us, you know, you burn more gas driving from Clearwood to Tumwater just to get back. In the meantime, people are waiting for their 911 calls to get resolved. Why are you taking so long to drive 40 minutes into town to get fuel to save 13 cents a gallon? just to drive back out.

But if we can find more opportunities throughout the county, like Pacific Pride, you know, if we can go to those, you know, those card in, you know, facilities and it saves, it adds up, you know, central services looking into it.

Yep. Yeah. We'd also like to know exactly what, what the savings was.

I JUST WAS WONDERING, WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR US, AND I THINK WE MENTIONED IT ALREADY, BUT FOR US TO GET MAYBE ADDED TO THE GENERAL, THIS IS A GENERAL FUND FORECAST, BUT A FORECAST JUST FOR TSTA, TST, PSST, AND FOR DETENTION SALES TAX, JUST TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT WHAT WE'RE ESTIMATING FOR THESE

without talking to someone, I think we can get you some regular reports on that. Those, like you said, those have different pathways, different folks that manage the funds, but we'll talk offline and we can get back to you on what that would look like.

That was kind of why I was wanting to wait to the end because I was wondering if we could have a presentation on the other funds piece, right? Especially as I think there's been a couple recommendations to shift things and just SEEING WHERE THE BALANCE IS ON KIND OF THOSE ITEMS, INCLUDING THE COUNTY ROAD FUND. YEAH. BUT I WOULD, IF IT'S POSSIBLE TO SEE, IF WE CAN SEE LIKE JUST SOMETHING, AND I'M NOT SURE WHEN WE COULD HAVE THAT. I KNOW WE HAVE A LOT OF OTHER FUNDS. BUT I THINK AS WE'RE MAKING THESE DECISIONS, JUST KIND OF SEEING THE HOLISTIC PICTURE OF.

THERE'S A SMALL GROUP. YEAH. really connect to the general fund. We were either slide thing, public safety sales tax and treating sales tax, things that would have been general before we had them, you know, and then there's road fund that comes the other way. I mean, it wouldn't be, sometimes we go through every fund and I don't think that's what we need.

Just the main ones.

I mean, the ones that are relevant to these general fund decisions.

Well, I mean, even including kind of like the human resources one, right. That we, you know, we just got a report on and human resources. Yeah. Recommended the leave buyout increase. That is a fund that we can look at and be like, okay, yes, that's absolutely right. Human resources is right and we should increase. And I know the resolution is really tight, but maybe we can have conversations and amend the resolution to include other things depending on where the fund is.

But I think it's just... Yeah, and I'm also really interested in looking at, with detention sales tax and public safety sales tax and TSC, HOW ARE WE ESTIMATING, HOW ARE THOSE LOOKING? HOW DID WE ESTIMATE THEM LAST YEAR AND WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT THIS YEAR AND ARE WE EXPECTING ANY GROWTH AND IS THERE GOING TO BE SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN WE THOUGHT? MAYBE THERE'S SOME MORE ROOM FOR US TO BE MOVING SOME THINGS AROUND INTO THESE FUNDS. THAT WOULD BE GREAT. OKAY. I WILL HELP US. My favorite.

I always say this every year. I do not envy your situation or your positions. I really don't. I don't envy your situation either. Just a good day yesterday. I don't want to know. I'll tell you when we're over. Good afternoon. Gary Warnock, Thurston County Coroner. I will be really brief because I don't have a lot. I'm a small department, very lean. I mean, I'm so lean, I have one FTE that's been out for a month on an injury, and I've had to require overtime or extra help just to fill that position. So it's been a rough month and a half, actually a rough two months. Do I, I don't have to do anything, right?

I can do that for you. So no, Gary, you set the time.

And Gary, I believe a belated happy birthday is in order.

Oh, what? We missed a birthday or something?

Not anymore.

So total budget is basically $2.3 million. For the target reduction, which is number two, was $92,000. That comes out of my professional service autopsy fund. I think right now I'm at $625,000. I have a two-year contract for pathology work, which is $420,000. And then if the pathologist is at training, on vacation, or sick, whatever, I'd have to pay out of pocket to pay someone else to do those exams. And right now I'm working with two pathologists that come down from King County Medical Examiner's Office. And so they've been a big help for my office. And the target reduction for scenario three is zero. And then my... My budget is the general fund is $1.2 million. Operation and discretionary funds is $736,000. And then internal services is $406,000. The $736,000, that's basically all of my professional services, which is my pathology work, my labs that we send off for special testing, what else is there there's different labs that we work with just to get those results back and then supplies which have the costs have gone up a lot where i i'm losing money because of the number of indigents that we see um i don't know what my fund is for indigents it's not um Indigent is $23,000, and I'm already overspent on that by almost 50%. So when I overspend that, that depletes my discretionary funding even lower, and it puts me in a pinch on supplies, office supplies and work supplies. And like I said, all the supplies have gone up, and I haven't seen an increase in My overtime budget is only 8,000, and I'm already over 335% over that already for this year. Can I talk about the indigent fund for a second? This is your time. So that fund line used to belong to the commissioners before I was elected. When I took over, they said, hey, we want you to deal with that because that's... That's what you deal with is death. But it's never been appropriately funded. So like I'm telling you, when I go over a certain amount of whatever it is, $23,000 now, that eats into my other budget lines just to make up that difference. So I would like to see that budget line go back to the commissioners. And then when I get an invoice for an indigent unclaimed, I send it to the commissioner's office to pay. And that would be something that you guys would have to monitor as far as that budget line, because it pulls funding away from my office. So I've had that budget fund since, I want to say it was 2007 when I was first elected. And I know, Commissioner Medea, you're going to ask me how many FTEs I have. Are you counting myself?

Yes, sir.

So that would be eight. Eight FTEs for a 24-7 operation. We are an action response. operation we're not out looking for business we just wait for the phone to ring and then we respond and that's 24 7. i have someone in the office every day at between 10 o'clock at midnight i send them home and then someone's just on call and i rely on four extra help folks just to cover operations in the morgue and on and pulling shifts for the investigations

Also the aid FTS doesn't cover one of your most expensive pathologists.

That's something that I would encourage you the board to look at again to maybe do a salary study.

Can I, I, um, can I ask you about something?

Yeah.

Um, so I've, been talking with other commissioners and one model that came up, which was very interesting, which I didn't know existed, was a Kitsap County model. Have you heard of it?

I'm totally familiar with it.

So for commissioners, so Kitsap County back in 2019 had conversations with their coroner and then they started a process to move into having a medical examiner the way it was, it was, I think it was finally voter approved in 2023. It took a long time for it to process. But I kind of wanted to hear your opinion on it since you're our coroner, right? And, you know, in conversations with, you know, the Kitsap medical examiner, like what have you heard? And, Would it be a worthwhile model? Do you think that the commissioners should even look at or investigate? I just wanted to hear your opinion.

I'll be honest with you, Commissioner. There's a potential for salary savings or just funding savings. If they're paying Kitsap County Medical Examiner, I'm going to say no. I'm going to say 350, just to put it out there. I don't know for sure, but it's probably right around 350. We're paying 420 for a contractor. If we did shift to an ME, you would still have to have a chief and probably an office manager. Or maybe the chief could be both. Operations, period. Just take away the chief and just make it an operations. I don't know what the model is that Kitsap has. I just know they did away with their coroner and the voters approved it because it has to be on a ballot. It would take the commissioners to talk amongst yourself, and if there's a majority vote to do away with the coroner's system and put it on the ballot, then that would be a vote for you to say yes or no, and if you're in agreement, you put it before the voters and they have a voice. And you gotta be transparent as far as what it's gonna cost. I think there's a lot of confusion on what the coroner is and isn't. There's probably a lot of people that think the coroner is an innie. It's not just a lack of education and training.

The coroner is the administrator of the program, even though you do have a background in death.

Yeah, a lot.

Yeah. Is there something you think that's lost by that transition that you give up? What's that? Like by going away from the coroner model?

I think when, if you do away with the corners position and make it an ME, that office no longer has a voice. They can't do any legislation work because now it would go to the county managers to, whatever, how, I don't even know what, I think they just report to the county manager in Kitsap. Yeah.

The commissioner would hire the, or the county manager would hire the,

So the statutory pathway, just to let the commissioners know, is under RCW 36.24.190, which allows counties with a population of 250,000 or more to replace the elected coroner with an appointed medical examiner system. And it's subject to voter approval. And part of the way that Kitsap did it was they also, which our corner is already doing is, you know, pathologists right now and medical examiners are under very high demand. And I think that it's one of the reasons they kind of saw the writing on the wall and they went down this, this model and we've struggled. And I know you, you know, better than anyone, how much, how hard it was to fill the pathologist. When I got interviewed with the accreditors for the coroner's office, when I mentioned just, you know, finding a pathologist was one of the hardest things. They were like, oh, yeah, this is like a nationwide problem. So, you know, part of what KITSEP also did was kind of allowing that medical examiner to provide services to neighboring counties. and kind of go into that full cost recovery kind of model where it was helping them kind of pay for this. And so it became a money saving kind of, that's how it was proposed to the voters. So I just, I wanted to hear your opinion on it, see if it was even worthwhile. Again, it would be a multi-year, It's not going to be overnight, for sure. It's not, no. But would you recommend us to have the county manager talk with Kitsap County?

I'm not going to recommend it. I mean, you can call Kitsap, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would encourage it, yeah. Like I said, there's potential for savings there. Yeah. I don't want to put myself out of a job. I know. Because when you take away this position, this person, if I'm not here in four years, or I will be four years, but if I'm not here, that person no longer speaks to the public. They don't do any press releases. It all goes to the management team who does all that. And we lose our voice.

Okay, any other questions for the coroner? Thank you. Okay, thank you. Happy birthday, Gary. Last but not least, we have the treasurer's office. Where's Jeff? On vacation. Vacay. We've got a letter from the treasurer, and we have the treasurer's representative.

Good afternoon, everybody. You don't need that, right? I'm just putting it down.

I love coroner stories. This is a good one.

And it's my birthday in two weeks. Okay, all right. Happy birthday to you. How's everyone doing? My name is Eric Sullivan, Program Manager for Thurston County Treasurer's Office. Jeff already had a pre-planned vacation before this was scheduled, so he did give a budget response, I believe he gave it to the managers, the board, and the clerk, I believe. So he did ask me just to come down and read it and present it on his behalf. He does ask that if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, save them. He'll be back in the office on Tuesday, I believe. He's traveling right now. He might be here tomorrow. I'm not sure. So Treasurer's Budget Response. Recently, I and other county leaders were presented with two reduction scenarios for the 2027 General Fund budget. The two reduction scenarios presented for this exercise are are asking me to paint a picture of my office if $68,590 or $159,554 were cut. By revising salary allocations in my office, I have already voluntarily exceeded those totals, even though I was not asked to cut my budget previously. The 2026 general fund demand was reduced by $82,500, which will continue for 2027. Since the allocations were revised in the fall of 2025, the total general fund reduction at the end of 27 will exceed $186,000. The Treasurer's Office is the second smallest office in the county and one of the smallest burdens on the general fund. The only policy-level budget requests that I have regularly made are to cover the increased costs of producing and mailing tax statements each year, costs that I cannot control and that are mandated in statute. Outside of the increased printing and postage, I have made two policy requests in my tenure. One, 15,000 to replace a copier, funds that I have never spent. The other request was in 2022, $30,000 to cover a retirement buyout of a senior staff member. Serving outside districts requires approximately 60% of the treasurer's office resources with no provisions in law for cost recovery. As the ex-officio treasurer for those districts, The services provided are mandated in statute. In 2025, the investment pool in my office generated $7,240,105 for the general fund. Year to date through June 30th, earnings are at $3,991,939, well in excess of my entire general fund allotment for the year. Earnings for 2026 are projected at $7,800,000, and 2027 should be similar. We can make confident earning projections due to how our portfolio is structured. Again, this unexpected revenue is more than my general fund allotment. There is an additional $4,048,000, this is a 2027 projection, in investment earnings that could be swept into the general fund if commissioners pass a resolution. A list is available upon request. I recommend taking this action for the next biennium. There are additional funds that keep their interest per resolution, representing an additional $2,071,000 in earnings available if fund resolutions were changed. In total, over $6 million is available that could benefit the general fund in 2027, more than the targeted $5,500,000 reduction. Note, these figures are estimated and should not be used as backup documentation and resolutions at this point. These investment earnings are 100% generated by my office, and they far exceed the requested general fund reduction by many times. Except for the billing and collection for special purpose districts, everything in my office is mandated in statute with consequences for not meeting legal requirements, including the removal from office. The treasurer is compensated for billing and collection services to special purpose districts. as allowed by law. In conclusion, I've shown revenues generated in my office far exceed the general fund allocation in any given year. In addition, I have pointed out available revenues far in excess of the amount of reduction requested. Finally, in my general fund allotment is reduced any further, I will not be able to meet statutory obligations, risking legal sanctions, possible removal of my office, neither of which appeal to me. Thank you, Judge Gatton. So if you do have any questions, he has to let him know.

Oh, OK. Well, we will follow up with . I think there are some questions to be asked, but we need to ask them again. Yeah, perfect. I have a 3 PM off-site, so I would like to, if there's nothing further during this meeting, does anyone have anything?

Can I just ask a quick question before? I mean, 7 is already up here. I figured there would already be a question. So just to touch on this paragraph that says that there's an additional $4 million in investment earnings, I see that we, in our general fund forecast, have $2.5 million projected in a sweep for interest. Correct.

The board gave direction to sweep interest There are interest funds that we're able to sweep and then interest funds by resolution that we are not able to sweep. And as part of that, those amounts are built into, and each fund is a little bit different, those amounts are built into the calculations for what those funds are intended for, what they're being used for. So Summer and I did meet with the treasurer, I think it was last week.

Yes, I think so. We've been in a weird time warp. Yeah. Recently.

To talk through and kind of align our understanding of some of the interest sweeps and then also to talk about the action taken by the board and that we need to bring the resolution forward. Summer, is there anything you'd like to add about that?

Just to add on that there are also funds that are restricted from sweeping interest that as I have been systematically going through the resolutions, they need to be brought forward to the board. for revision in reference to the statutory prohibition of sweeping the interest there. And also another add-on is that there are certain funds, like bond funds, that we keep the interest in those funds for the intent of the projects. So yes, there are restrictions on some of the sweeping. So the treasurer indicates that we can sweep if the board takes a resolution action. But in some of those cases, we would not advise that you sweep the entirety of the list as it was presented.

So can we, I mean, if we could get something written up. I mean, of course, I'm sure you guys are already working on this. But that would say, here are some potential areas.

Can? Or you can't? You shouldn't?

Yeah.

And you should.

Yeah.

BECAUSE WE'RE ALREADY SWEEPING MONEY OUT OF THE ROAD FUND AND WE'RE STEALING FROM OTHER FUNDS. WE'RE NOT STEALING.

YOU'RE NOT STEALING. IT'S TIME TO GET OUT THE LANTERNS. THAT'S WHAT I SAY.

WE'RE SHIFTING. YOU GOT TO KNOW WHERE THE SHIFTING POSSIBILITIES ARE BECAUSE WE'RE ALREADY DOING THE SHIFTING. SO IT'S NOT RIGHT TO NOT KNOW WHAT OUR... what our choices are, such as they may be ill-advised.

The work is underway. So one of the things that's really difficult and takes a lot of time to research and locate prior resolutions from, say, 30 years ago.

I'm in the archives. I saw how difficult it could be to source things.

And, you know, we have some really great, again, plugging Maureen and Central Services. We have some really great staff members like Maureen and Jessica who are whizzes at it, but it can be, two to three day turnaround period on those search efforts.

I think that what we have to remember is the board took action to sweep in when we were talking about 2026 and even in that situation there's at least one instance where something that was shown on a chart that was available to sweep. The way to learn isn't available to sweep, and we're having to do the work. So you can absolutely bring that forward. But I think that this is a very high-level comment that, as it appears, if it was that easy, we would be bringing that forward to you. But we can absolutely bring the information so the board can see and understand it.

Yeah, you know, and I just, for me, just on that point is that it would be really, I like your idea of can't, can, you know, like being able to have this menu of here are things that are potential. I mean, I think that now that we've moved forward with this idea of a levy, putting this levy out there, if we could see some modest, like a projection of some sort of, this is where we project if we were being CONSERVATIVE, AND THIS IS WHAT WE PROJECT OF THAT FUND IF WE WANT TO BE NOT CONSERVATIVE, AND MAYBE THE COMMISSIONERS THEN COULD SAY, YOU KNOW, DO WE HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF LEEWAY IN THESE FUNDS? YOU KNOW, I GUESS THAT'S I'M NOT SURE THAT I'M EXPLAINING THAT, BUT I'M SAYING THAT I THINK THAT WE'VE GOT TO LOOK IN ALL OF THE CREVICES AND THEN LET THE COMMISSIONERS DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT THEY WANT TO RISK, YOU KNOW, A PROJECTION THAT'S BIGGER Or less. Does that make sense?

You're talking about the interest specifically?

Well, it could be interest. It could be PST. It could be, I mean, just any. Sweeping funds from. Well, I mean, just projection wise that, you know, if we think the revenue is going to come in sales. So, for example, sales tax revenue would be, you know, we project each month. You guys have projections that you make each month and I've seen them. They're great. YOU KNOW, IF WE PROJECTED THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE A LITTLE BIT MORE, AND SO THEN WE HAD AN EXTRA $250,000 IN THAT FUND, I JUST WANTED TO MAYBE HAVE AN OPTION OF CONSERVATIVE, CONSERVATIVE PROJECTION AND MAYBE A NOT SO CONSERVATIVE PROJECTION.

DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? I'LL JUST SPEAK TO THAT. OUR PROJECTIONS ARE NOT have lots of money left over that's not what we're doing when there are funds that are performing better than anticipated we bring that information forward to the board ASAP so that we are not having to take any reductions in fact the whole reason we propose a three-year approach is hopefully things improve and In the projection dynamic, I think what we have seen is we are very dialed in now, whereas in the past, there were just placeholders. It's part of the reason we had the, in 2024, in the fall, that aha moment of the budget is off balance, because there were some over-projections, placeholders, percentages that were too high. So I don't know that, unless we receive direction from the board, but PROJECTING HIGHER THAN IT'S PERFORMING WILL JUST INCREASE THE BUDGET DEFICIT IN YEARS OUT.

AND THEN, OKAY, YEAH, I GET THAT. AND THEN THE LAST THING I JUST WANT TO MENTION IS THAT AUDITOR HALL MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT THAT, THE CHANGE IN THE $600,000 THAT WAS DIFFERENT FROM LAST YEAR, AND I JUST WONDERED IF WE CAN GET A LITTLE BIT OF RESEARCH ON THAT, TOO.

SURE, YEAH, ABSOLUTELY.

OKAY. THAT'LL JUST HELP US, YOU KNOW, FOR NEXT YEAR. when we start deciding what we really have to cut and what we might be able to scrape out.

Kind of through, I want to respond a little bit to the one point, because it was like, if we were kind of like right at this even line, then it would be like, what you were saying would make more sense. But since like the projection is like, is that it's widening, it's like if we... we're more optimistic, that just means great. In the second, third year, we don't have, we won't have to cut it all or as much. It doesn't really change what we need to do this year because we're still underwater even like we're, you know, in terms of the, and I think there was, there were optimistic projections. I mean, you know, we would get these same, you know, in my first few years on the board, we would get these same presentations, except they would be about, they'd be more optimistic. They'd be all about all the needs. Like we need these seven people. We need these 12 people. We need these four people. And Robin Campbell, our budget manager at the time, knew how badly we as commissioners wanted to meet those needs. And so she would massage the numbers and, squeezed every corner to say, I think, and she'd come to us and say, I think I've got something where you guys could spend like $2 million extra of operational ongoing money this year. And she explained to us how she got there and that was optimistic as it's turned out, you know, but it was it was like us trying to, you know, because just I know I can hear it in what you're. Feeling and we all feel is like, we know how badly our different office and departments need these different positions and ability to meet their obligations. So, you know. there was that tendency when we were above water to be a little more optimistic but it kind of bit us in a way and the economy turned in a way we you know covid and the flush of arpa money and then the inflationary in fact impact and the sales tax flattening i mean none of that was on the back of our budget team but it put us now in a situation where i don't think we can be all that optimistic in our projections because we're already looking at a gap that's kind of scary. I hope that everything comes in stronger and that scariness just closes down. Yeah, in the years out. In the years out.

That's the hope. I would also say that in the funds that we are tracking, if things were coming back much stronger, that would have been front-loaded in the conversation about the approaches that the board was taking. in the scenarios. We would have said, hey, we're tracking this. The only one that has an unknown that we talked about earlier is 2015 because we don't have enough time collecting and because

how much tax is coming in. It's about the scope of the application of the law.

Commissioner Klaus reminded of just a brief conversation about the internal cost allocation. Because it was referenced just describing the cost allocation and what that does.

So the reason Summer's looking that way is because, and rightly so, is because the cost allocation plan, while identified as the board's cost allocation plan, is actually, say, managed, calculated, done by financial services and specifically Ron Haney. So if you recall the presentation with Ron Haney where we learned that I learned that I had some additional responsibilities as a part of the cost plan and so to the unforgettable sign him up for another one so that was Ron explaining what the cost of

I WOULDN'T DESCRIBE THE COST PLAN AS REVENUE. IT IS CHARGING THE COUNTY DIFFERENT FUNDS AND DEPARTMENTS AND GENERAL FUND AND OTHER RESTRICTIVE FUNDS. IT'S RECOUPING COSTS AND CHARGING THE WORKOUT. YEAH, OF GENERAL FUND INTERNAL SERVICE.

VERY PRESCRIPTIVE AND IT'S WRITTEN INTO ALL OF THE GAP ACCOUNTING LAWS AND EVERYTHING IS VERY, VERY SPECIFIC. mapped to all the little accounts and then put together.

I would never call that revenue because it's not like we're charging it out from outside entities bringing new dollars in. It's an internal charge. And I think that there's a huge opportunity, just like we're doing with the internal service rates, to bring a consultant in and to really have that process looked at and evaluated for opportunities in the future.

I think it's really important that we really embrace the full cost recovery concept, including all the contracts that we have, that we're providing services. And it's clearly not always understood that we're ensuring that we're not subsidizing other organizations and agencies. What kind of effort or level of effort are we able to put into that kind of analysis?

That's the direction that the board has given. So a policy will be making its way through for review, and then it'll, once it takes effect, and we've already started that process in certain areas, but once it takes effect, then it'll be a process where all new contracts that come before the board take that into consideration, and we'll go back and look at which ones may need to be revisited.

Thank you. Okay, we're at the end of the meeting. We're adjourned.