Board of County Commissioners - workshop

Recording in progress.

Okay, good afternoon. Welcome to the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners Board Work Session for Wednesday, September 9, 2026. It's 2.04 p.m. My name is Ty Mentzer, Chair of the Board. To my left is Commissioner Carolina Mejia, Commissioner Emily Klaus. Vice Chair Commissioner Fournier and Commissioner Grant are virtual, County Manager Leonard Hernandez, Assistant County Managers Jennifer Walker and Joshua Cummings, and Director of the Board Ewing Davis is here, and already with us is our budget manager, Summer Miller, because the primary topic for the work session is midterm budget deliberations. The meeting is being live streamed to the Thurston County YouTube channel, and written public comment may be received up to two hours of the meeting and distributed to the board. Action may be taken at this meeting And with all of that, I will turn it to the Chair and Manager.

Thanks so much, Chair. To start off this afternoon, I just want to give a big thanks to all of our office and department staff, the finance staff, the teams that work on the budget, our department directors, LAST WEEK'S PRESENTATIONS AT THE BOARD'S DIRECTION TO LOOK AT VARIOUS OPTIONS AND HOW WE'RE ADDRESSING OUR BUDGET DEFICIT OF 5.5 MILLION FOR THE UPCOMING YEAR. I THOUGHT THE ORGANIZATION DID A GREAT JOB OF GIVING THE BOARDS INFORMATION. TODAY WE'RE GOING TO PRIMARILY FOCUS ON SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THE BOARD HAD ABOUT THE SALES TAX REVENUES AND WHERE THOSE ARE AT. probably over the next several weeks coming back to the board with a few follow-ups. Next week we look to talk about some of the interest sweeps and the different funds that the board requested. And our hope is that we get direction from the board by the end of the month. That is a firm timeline in order for us to stay on track with all the processing that needs to happen. And the direction that we're looking for from the board is how to take that $5.5 million and apply it to the offices and departments. The number has not changed. The number is still the same when we look at our deficit. And I'm thankful that the board took action, gosh, was it back in June, when they took the deficit and broke it over a three-year period of time. Our hope is that in the out years, when we build the 28 and 29 biennium budget, that financial situations have changed and that we can look at the outer year's most reduction, which I think is at $4 million, and that can be significantly reduced. But at this time, we're still tracking with the deficit size that it is. I think that's important because for those watching, and I know the partners that we have within our organization, even our union partners with labor, I would just make it clear that When it's talked about from offices and departments about the numbers changing, the discretion that the board has is looking at how do they apply that $5.5 million across the different programs and services called the offices and departments. We're not talking about the number itself changing. This isn't a situation where we're overestimating a situation just to have people go through an exercise. That deficit is a real number. It's a real number over three years based on the current forecast. Numbers are continuing to progress with the certainty that summer has provided. So the forecast numbers that we're using are on track. When and if that changes, we will come immediately to the board and look at how that addresses the out years. So with that, I just wanted to provide a little bit of context as to what the board is really working towards. It's looking at that $5.5 million. and how that applies over the different scenarios that the board authorized the county manager and our budget and finance manager to go back and take a look at with the departments so that you could hear from them what would be the impacts to services. And I think I heard Commissioner Claus say that I believe their response this year is so much better than we had in past years. And that's why I'm starting with a thank you to our partners and the offices and our appointed departments, because I think they did a lot of hard work coming together. And it's not easy work. No one likes to look at how are these dollars going to impact programs, staff, different things that they are doing that they know benefit the community. But it's the needed work that we're doing based on the direction the board has given us to balance our structural deficit.

Can I say one thing up front? Yes, absolutely. I also want to remind the board that um in order to break this deficit into a three-year window and and make the difficult OUR BUDGET POLICY AND SUSPENDED OUR PREVIOUSLY REQUIRED POLICY THAT WOULD HAVE REQUIRED A BALANCED BUDGET THIS YEAR. SO WHEN WE TALK ABOUT IT MAY LOOK A LITTLE BETTER NEXT YEAR, THAT JUST GETS US CLOSER TO WHERE HONESTLY WE SHOULD BE, I MEAN, IN A PERFECT PLACE. SO I JUST THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT AS WE TALK ABOUT, YOU KNOW, IF THERE'S slight differences of opinion about the forecast, or we've already taken what I consider to be a very extraordinary step. it was you know obviously i i feel very invested in that budget policy i helped put it together with robin campbell and significant financial responsibility step for thurston county and it's to me for me personally it's a very extraordinary step to suspend that and look at um dividing up having an unbalanced budget in order to try to keep our county services whole so I hope our offices and departments and employees and leadership respect that. And I hope that means something to them because it means something to me because I did it for them. It's a compromise of financial responsibility in a sense, but I think it's needed because of the situation

in which we're trying to make these other 2027 specific decisions it's a strategic decision to see if we can avoid based on the out years if there's a chance to avoid having to cut as deep as The projection is today that there's an opportunity to do that. I think the other item, Chair, that I'd point out is that the structural deficit means these are ongoing deficit numbers. It's not just $5.5 million that's static that can be filled with one-time dollars. If we fill it with one-time dollars but not ongoing dollars, all that happens is in the out years, the deficit grows if it's not with an ongoing component. And so can't sell a building. Yes, that's the gap. Yep. So I think that's important because I don't want folks to think that, well, hey, if we had a bucket over here, why don't you just use it over there? There's a management process that we're taking to right-size the budget with revenues and expenditures and getting those in alignment. I've probably said a lot more than I intended to, but I thought the opening was necessary. And I'll pass over to Summer, and she'll lead us through the presentation.

THANK YOU. I THINK THE OPENING WAS VERY MUCH NECESSARY AND VERY MUCH APPRECIATED. THANK YOU. SO I AM SUMMER MILLER. I'M THE BUDGET AND FINANCE MANAGER. WE ARE BACK TODAY AS THE CHAIR INDICATED AND THE COUNTY MANAGER TO REVIEW SOME OF THE REQUESTS THAT CAME ABOUT FROM LAST WEEK FOR MYSELF AND MY TEAM TO LOOK AT THE SALES, NON-GENERAL FUND SALES TAX FUNDS. So moving ahead, as a reminder to the board, on June the 3rd, the board adopted the strategy to spread the $22.3 million reduction over three years to minimize the impact on our county's departments and offices to protect a minimal fund balance and cash flow. This proposed plan builds directly on the projected deficit, combining 8.3 million in reversion with a phased reduction approach of $5.5 million in 2027, $4.5 million in 2028, and $4 million in 2029. Please keep in mind that out-year reduction figures are flexible, meaning if things get better in 2028, in 2029 we cut less. And if things get worse, we will have to cut more. Ultimately, these plans are estimates that depend entirely on all of the financial factors playing out exactly as we have built them into our current models. And at this time, projected revenue expenditure and reversions are still tracking well. Now, moving ahead, following the board's adoption of the three-year approach in early June, staff were given direction to create a reduction scenario for board consideration. Three different scenarios were developed and shared with the board in early August. Those three scenarios were reduced to two, which you see here as scenario number two and scenario number three. And then those were distributed to departments and offices as the starting point of the reduction exercises. These scenarios were developed by departments and offices with consideration to service impacts within our organization and to the public. and those were delivered on September 2nd and September 3rd. And as indicated at the opening, we do truly appreciate the partnership across the county and everyone developing these difficult exercise scenarios. So jumping ahead, for the purposes of the presentation, we will be reviewing five non-general fund sales tax funds, which are displayed here. public safety sales tax fund 1230 law, 1240 justice, 1250 HB 2015, our detention sales tax fund 1100, and treatment sales tax fund 1180. We have three public safety sales tax funds. The three funds we have designated as public safety sales tax funds are shown here as 1230 law, 1240 justice, and those were approved by voters during the 2023 general election, and collection began in early 2024. Our newest to the bunch, which is the PSST 1250, also known as HB 2015, was councilmanically imposed in 2025 after the legislative session providing for HB 2015. Gonna be doing this a lot, I can tell with my glasses today. SO THE FIRST ONE IS GOING TO BE PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX 1230 LAW. RCW 8214-450 AUTHORIZES COUNTIES TO SUBMIT THE QUESTION OF IMPOSING UP TO THREE-TENTHS OF A PERCENT SALES TAX FOR THE PURPOSES OF PUBLIC SAFETY. AGAIN, IN JULY 2023, THE BOARD ADOPTED RESOLUTION 16289, WHICH CALLED FOR THE PLACEMENT OF AN ADDITIONAL TWO-TENTHS OF A PERCENT SALES AND USE TAX ON THE NOVEMBER 7, 2023 GENERAL ELECTION. to be used for law enforcement, prosecution, public defense, and election security. Yes, ma'am.

Is that okay, Chair? Yes. I just want to ask, since we're on this slide in terms of that resolution, the resolution and what voters approved said no supplanting, correct?

The resolution and the ballot measure language did include a clause of no supplanting. So yes, that is correct.

So what does that kind of restrict us in?

or the sheriff, commissioners, if you recall, I think it was last year. No, 2024. 2024. We came to a place of understanding and agreement with the sheriff's team about what that dollar amount meant.

The maintenance of effort amount, yes.

The maintenance of effort. And that maintenance of effort was set at the? $26,410,000. That's why Summer does what she does. $26,410,000.

Thank you.

And I think that was a really important step and we appreciate the sheriff's collaboration so that there wouldn't be ambiguity there. In hindsight, I'm glad that we were able to work collaboratively.

Just to spell that out one step further. So what that means is 26.4% of general fund, 26.4% of the general fund must continue to go toward. Not percent, but dollars. Sorry, not percent. which is where it was.

Yes.

Therefore, you're not supplanting or replacing that money with public safety sales tax money. You can't go below that.

It becomes like a watermark line. You can't go below that because that then would be considered supplanting.

When the general fund may grow, that line stays where it's at.

Right. That's the line in the sand that says that's the amount of

Commitment and as a general fund grows and we have continued the board has continued to support the sheriff above that line But that becomes the fallback number that you don't go below that line Kind of as a follow-up to that so the twenty six point four million We have different public safety tax funds which we're going to talk about so is that twenty six million applied to just a lot or is it the jail and as well, corrections?

The $26 million is specific to the sheriff's patrol, the law side, of the general fund appropriations.

Okay, so there's not a non-supplanting clause that's applied to the corrections side?

The ballot language for the public safety sales tax measure in November of 2023 did not provide room for corrections. It's strictly for law enforcement, prosecuting attorneys, public defense, and the ballot processing center bond issue, as well as the sheriff's infrastructure bond.

Okay. Actually, because you mentioned that, does the non-supplanting clause also apply to those other areas of public safety, like the prosecutor and the other departments or offices that receive that money?

It was a general blanketed statement. Okay. So it'll apply to the PSST justice as well. I believe it's in the first paragraph of that resolution, might be the second, but yes, it's just a generalized statement of non-supplanting of this existing cost of services.

So should we be aware then of like the maintenance of effort level for the other offices too?

I think for public defense, it's kind of a mute point, but we can provide that information. We just want to make sure we touch base with those office departments so that there's alignment, but we can provide that information.

Okay, thank you. Okay, shall I continue? Yes. Thank you. Okay. So the revenue is shared with cities within Thurston County and that's at a 60-40 split of revenue received and then it is split 75-25% between what we designate as public safety sales tax 1230 law and 1240 justice. Currently, the funding is fully committed for this fund to the Thurston County Sheriff's Office patrol and the 2024 infrastructure bond issue. This fund indicates currently a healthy fund balance. However, the appropriations were set in 2026 for almost $3 million more than revenue estimates. And the sheriff's team has kept actual and forecasted expenditures lower than revenue receipts. which is reflecting sustainability in the fund. However, if we maximize the current appropriations, it will throw the fund balance projections lower than current modeling. Keep in mind that budget is point in time estimates with known assumptions. So we are continuing to track performance as we understand it today, but that doesn't stop operationally expending to the maximum amount of the appropriations this year, which is about $10.2 million. So as a budget team, we advise that the board continue to allow us to monitor the fund's health and performance through the biennia to not add any further commitments. OK, so this slide shows the fund balance for fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25, keeping in mind that we're still working on closing out fiscal year 2025. So there may be slight adjustments to these figures. Fiscal years 26 and 27, which have a very light yellow highlight in the background, are estimates. And they're only based on the current fund health and our subject change. We show that our fund balance has gone from 3.8 million to 4.6 million, estimated at 4.8 million and 5.1 million. Although the fund is fully committed, the appropriations draw fund balance down if it's utilized to the maximum amount and actual expenditures to match revenue receipts are what we're using in our projections at this time.

So maybe we can elaborate on that because I know I think what you said there about it being fully committed, can you just explain that in a little bit more detail?

Sure. So in 2026, now keep in mind this is a depiction of fund balance. In 2026, the board adopted revenue estimates of $7.2 million and appropriations for the sheriff's portion of public safety sales tax at $10.2 million. We are seeing revenues come in slightly higher, and the expenditures are tracking slightly lower. And they're tracking actually in a way that I find healthy for the fund, meaning that the revenues are slightly above the expenditure level at this time. If the Sheriff's Office were to choose to speed up recruitment processes and filling vacant positions, ENTERING ANY PURCHASE AGREEMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN APPROPRIATED BY THE BOARD ALREADY TO THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF $10 MILLION, THEN THE FUND BALANCE PROJECTIONS WOULD SPEW IN THE OUT YEARS BY ABOUT $2.5 MILLION LESS EACH YEAR MOVING FORWARD.

SO TO SUMMARIZE, WHILE THERE IS A TRACKING FUND BALANCE, WHAT THE BOARD HAS AUTHORIZED THE SHERIFF TO SPEND IS GREATER THAN THE REVENUE THAT'S COMING IN. That's the process whereby the sheriff has the authority to draw those dollars down. We appreciate them being cautious and walking through this time of fiscal uncertainty, but we have to remember that just because there's a fund balance on the trend doesn't mean that the sheriff doesn't have the authority and ability to spend that money down and have him by submitting a budget to the board that the board approves, he has plans to draw that down and to spend it all.

That is correct, yes. And also, I'd like to highlight, you know, sales tax was consistently performing at about 1.5 to 1.75%, and it's only in the last few months that we've seen some slight increases that are promising in the non-general fund sales tax funds. And it would be good for us to be able to track that collection for a period of time to kind of feel out the certainty of that continuing. And as the county manager said, you know, most of the appropriation is currently being unspent, but it will continue to be part of the budget ongoing. And if we were to add more to the fund at this time and increase appropriations, then we're putting ourselves in a kind of a bad habit of continuing to overspend what we know our revenues are, which is one of the contributing factors to our general fund structural deficit at this time.

I did the math just based on those rounded numbers, and that would show 26 would be 4.3% increase, and then 27 would be a 500,000 up from 4.8 is 5.9%. I know that every sales tax law sometimes is subtly different in terms of what's taxed. But is this promising trend showing in our general fund sales tax? No. We're not talking about that today.

So why would it look so good here, potentially, and not?

Do you know that off the top of your head in terms of what's taxed?

Well, there are a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons that first comes to mind is the imposition of tax first. So if it's a city, we're limited to tax collection within the boundaries of that city, and then the city receives 85% of the tax collection, or the county only gets 15% to general fund. So the dollar-to-dollar amount would be less.

I know that talking to my peer in Olympia, city manager, mentioned that their sales tax for Olympia, funny because we had a conversation, Lacey isn't tracking as high of a trend as Olympia is, and so we're thinking that some of the state decisions that they made within the state capital might be contributing, but it only has been a few months of collection, so it's hard to draw a certainty. whether it's a brief bubble or if it's going to continue to trend up. And I think that's what is helpful when we look at the build for 28-29. If it trends up, then we come to the board and it adjusts the deficit amounts in the out years, which is the whole strategy the board employed.

So while these numbers are encouraging, it's too soon to tell if it's a trend.

Yeah.

Yes, that is very true.

And I think that the other item is we've heard from some of the offices with some of these sales tax measures that the current fiscal climate of uncertainty has caused them to slow down a bit on their spending. So it's not that they're not having their budgets approved with the plans to spend, but they're just trying to be mindful because nobody wants to bring people on board and then not have the resources to continue to keep them. So they may be going slower than if we didn't have a current negative backdrop for the budget.

So your recommendation is no additional appropriations from this fund?

THAT WOULD BE MY RECOMMENDATION AT THIS TIME BASED ON THE CURRENT APPROPRIATIONS OF 10.2 AND THE WAY THAT THE REVENUE ESTIMATES, THE REVENUE ESTIMATES WERE BUDGETED AND WHAT WE'RE SEEING AS FAR AS COLLECTION.

IS THERE A QUESTION?

THUMBS UP.

I HAVE MY GLASSES, SORRY. OKAY, SO MOVING ALONG. The next one in this Prop 1 Duo is Public Safety Sales Tax 1240 Justice. This is the 25% of collection that is split between the prosecutor's office, public defense, and election security. All of the same caveats to this as the 1230 fund. This fund is also currently fully committed to the prosecutor's office, public defense, and the ballot processing center portion of the 24 bond issue. And again, as its counterpart, the fund is indicating a healthy fund balance. However, appropriations set for 26 are significantly higher than revenue estimates and our actual and forecasted expenditures are lower than revenue receipts. which is what is creating a reflection of sustainability in the fund moving forward. And like the fund we just talked about, if we were to maximize the current appropriation levels, it would throw this fund balance lower than what has been shared with the board. And so we advise, again, monitoring the fund balance health and performance through the biennia, especially considering that the board took actions to shift some general fund expenditures specifically in the prosecutor's office to this fund. So it would be good to give the dust time to settle, if that's the way that we say that.

It was not, I know there was discussions between prosecutor and clerk about some creativity ideas and I didn't hear them, the clerk's office talk about that in their presentation. Is that still ongoing or? It is still something. Abandoned or?

No, not abandoned. They are working out an operational MOU. This is one of the areas where they are approaching it a bit more cautiously to make sure that they have the capacity in there to do that. from what I understand from the prosecuting attorney's office and the clerk that they're both still very interested in that next step taking place.

Okay. Okay, so like the one, two slides before, this one also shows fund balance for 2024 and 2025. 26 and 27 are estimates only based on the current fund health and are subject to change. And again, the appropriations are set higher than what the expenditure level is coming in at this time. And to the county manager's point just a few moments ago, a lot of the offices and departments have indicated that they've slowed down hiring because it's uncertain times right now. Okay. So the next one in the, we've called it the Public Safety Sales Tax Group, is 1250. also known as HB 2015. This was a new Washington state law that improves criminal justice and public safety funding through a tenth of a percent sales tax and the creation of a law enforcement grant program. Resolution 16587 was adopted by the board in December of 2025 to impose 2015. As of I think it's just the last month or so, we did receive confirmation that our grant application was not only successfully completed, but that Thurston County is now fully eligible for the funding.

A huge accomplishment, yeah.

Thanks.

Significant undertaking.

That was a very heavy lift. There was a, yes.

significant undertaking because in this environment this HP 2015 we are grateful to the legislature for providing this opportunity but it moved fast and in its creation the interaction of getting clear answers and we are super thankful to our sheriff's team they had to do a lot of work a lot of data provide a lot of data and information and then summer worked as well to make sure that all the T's were crossed, I's were dotted, so that we could actually be, receive official word that we're successful.

CJTC, Department of Revenue, Sheriff's Office, and Summer Translating for those groups got us over the hurdle in a big way. Yes.

Thank you. Yes, and I really want to express my deepest appreciation for the Under Sheriff and Captain Johnson And Kylie, because they really were really wonderful. And I know that it was a long time. It was a year or so of work to get this thing over the finish line. And so I really do appreciate their willingness to support.

We don't qualify if our law enforcement policies, data reporting, and training aren't up to certain criteria.

Yes. And demonstrated.

So the Sheriff's Office could have precluded us from this finding. if they weren't willing to work with us.

That's why we're so thankful to have the partner and the sheriff to say with his team, make this a priority because they could have said that's too much requirements and he would have the... Because the funding's, I mean, you could make some argument that there are some backhanded benefit, but generally speaking, this money's

around partners. So I'm just highlighting that, yeah, I do appreciate that level of collaboration, which we haven't always had with the Sheriff's Office in years past. Yes.

Can I ask just a follow-up question kind of on the same vein? It was something I believe that the Sheriff's Office mentioned during his presentation in terms of certain positions meeting that, and if he were to cut those, it would affect this funding. Is that

Yes, there is an eligibility requirement for there to be certain activities within the sheriff's office. And so he was rightfully flagging for the board that depending on how the deficit spending was allocated, we had to be careful not to cut certain positions that would affect our eligibility for this fund.

If I remember, wasn't that the scenario three, I want to say? It was one of the scenarios where...

IT'S A GOOD AWARENESS TO HAVE, AND WE'RE APPRECIATIVE OF THE SHERIFF FOR FLAGGING THAT AS A SIGNAL TO THE BOARD, SOMETHING TO BE MINDFUL OF.

SO CAN I CONTINUE? ON 2015, SO I KNOW WE'VE TALKED ABOUT IT LAST YEAR, RIGHT? I KNOW ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE HIGHLIGHTED FOR THIS ONE WAS THE PUBLIC DEFENSE AND THE NEW REQUIREMENTS FOR THAT. SEEING THE FINANCIAL PLAN, IS THAT KIND OF BUDGETED AND ALLOCATED THAT DIRECTION OR?

YES. SO THE PUBLIC DEFENSE CASELOAD STANDARD, THE BOARD'S DIRECTION WAS TO IMPLEMENT THAT over seven years versus the state requirement of 10 years. And I believe one of the options presented by Public Defense and Patrick's team at five years. And so there is a seven year ramp up in the financial plan actually beginning in 2027. And the budgeted amount currently in 27 includes what would have been the apportionment for 26. and 27, and then each of the years following, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32, have a compounding effect, if you will, of those staffing increases year over year, plus the associated costs that were estimated last fall for those position standup requirements. So that was a long way to say yes.

Can you remind me, I feel like there were choices that we made in the effort to reduce our deficit last year that were solid, not, we rejected things that were purely speculative, but there were things that were solid, but yet, you know, not quite there yet in order to like count on them. And I'm, am I remembering right that when we were looking at that seven year public defense plan, which has, you know, tenure was like the most, We aspired to do five. We went to seven. But weren't we sort of looking to this revenue at that point? Yes.

This provided us the opportunity to actually fulfill the state requirements. Absent this funding, it would have meant that that $7 million that is going to this effort, and it's a buildup over time. It's a seven-year implementation, but the first two years are at the 10-year pacing, and then it In year three, it picks up to the five-year pacing. All of that would have, yeah, hopefully.

All of that would have. Yeah, just to say that like we, it's good this is working and it's not, but it means that the calculated risk we took was sound.

Yes.

But it doesn't mean that it's like new, to meet a whole bunch of new needs. It's committed. It's kind of like we already sort of planned that it was going to plug that hole

that's now legally required. Absent that, it would have been larger. Just making sure I'm understanding that I'm remembering that correctly. You guys, okay.

Can I just add to that? Like, again, I think, well, I'm grateful that this fund exists. Like this takes away from us funding other needs. The fact that the state has still not funded public defense and we are dealing with that unfunded mandate. I, not disagree with the uh with the outcome of the decision of of the caseload standards but uh for me it's it's the lack of funding uh that uh is definitely impacting um counties and cities too um and so you know yes this funding is great but we have other needs uh as well that we can be using to fill that gap but instead we have to use it for for this with this mandate instead.

Yeah, absolutely. Reed, our entire justice ecosystem is in desperate need of additional resources from the courts, pretrial services, clerk of the court, sheriff, PAO. So you're right. It's fortunate, but it's taken away from other opportunities that we could see some advancements in.

Okay, so... Moving along, here is some background information. Just as a quick refresher on HB 2015, it was approved during the 2025 legislative session, allows for councilmanic imposition of 1 tenth of a percent, which must be voter approved after June 30th of 2028. We must meet the CJTC law enforcement grant requirements, even if the grant funding is not taken by the county. There is no revenue share. It is stackable with other limited public criminal justice sales taxes. There is an annual reporting requirement to the Association of Washington Cities and the Washington State Association of Counties within one year of imposing the sales tax and annually thereafter. So I very much look forward to that endeavor. with our sheriff's office partners, yay. And it's for the use of criminal justice purposes, such as public defenders and diversion programs. Further uses to be explored after a period of revenue collections to determine accuracy of estimates would be my recommendation. This funding has been committed to the Public Defense Caseload Standard Implementation Plan. And again, just another note that I advise monitoring fund health at minimum through this biennia. And then as we begin developing the next biennial budget, then we.

So second bullet must be voter approved after June 30th, 2028. Does that mean in order to collect it on July 1st, 2028, we would have to have it on the ballot before then?

If it's not imposed prior to that deadline, it has to be imposed through a voter measure after that deadline.

Because it's done.

The board took action and took advantage of the window.

Oh, I see.

Oh, okay. Gotcha. It's not that it's just a limited, because there are taxes set up where, like we were, a cultural access one or whatever, where you can do it, but you can only do it, and then you've got to go to the voters. But that's not, okay. That's not this. Gotcha. Yeah, TBD, exactly.

And this is your slide, Commissioner Mincer, in terms of the public defense caseload being committed. I see that.

Yes. Can I ask? Thank you, Chair. The CJTC, the law enforcement grant, is that still open? Could that still be a possibility? I know there were different requirements for that one. That grant was a hefty one, and there's like a match associated with it, but...

We actually have a meeting, Summer and I, with some representatives from the city of Olympia who have implemented just to do some awareness sharing about the approach they took to match our notes and see if there's any opportunities. If after that meeting, if there's any opportunity for us to do more, we'll definitely bring that back to the board and update in conversations.

If I may, I think to add, and we can pull the prior materials and resend them, but there was a 75% grant funding opportunity through the grant, 25% match, and also a commitment to continue those positions ongoing after. And I believe it would have been through a

Let me not say that part.

So yeah, I mean, there, there is more work to do if you want that information, but the board decided last year not to seek the grant opportunity because it would likely be a impact to the general fund to continue those positions moving forward.

And that's why we're going to meet with the city of Olympia because we just want to compare notes if they have been successful and getting an interpretation that maybe, um, more advantageous to using the funds in a different way. And that's something that we are wanting to explore. I think the meeting's in a couple of weeks. So we look forward to reporting back. If it's something that is viable and with the sheriff's agreement, we would come forward to the board and have that conversation.

Okay, so this is the estimated fund balance projections for 26 through 32. Keeping in mind that projections, you know, in my opinion, we can project out up to five years with a certain level of comfort. Preferably, we'll stay within three years. Anything beyond the five-year period is pretty fanciful, right? We don't know what's going to happen at that point, but You can see on these projections or estimated projections that the fund is fully committed. The spike that is shown in fund balance in 2028 is due to the collections for the latter half of this year and the collections that we will have in 27 to support the operational costs that have already been committed to this funding. And it mostly consists of that seven-year public defense caseload standard implementation schedule. In 2029, we anticipate that the expenditures would outpace revenue, and it will quickly draw down the fund balance in the out years. So we will need to be very careful in adding any additional expenditures to this fund. And I just want to remind the board, there is no fund balance yet. We just started collecting in July, and that collection was $34. Then we collected some in August. It was a little bit higher, and that's not uncommon in the first couple of months. But I do fully anticipate that the monthly collections through the rest of this year will fall in line with the next two funds we'll talk about because these three funds, 1250, TST, and DST are all one-tenth of a percent, and there's no revenue share, and they're all for the county. So they're sisters. They're I call them, well, I told Jennifer Walker, they're kind of like twinsies. So we'll talk about that in a minute. If you have any questions with this, if not, I'll move on.

Let me share real quick. Yesterday at the Lacey 60th anniversary, they had a panel of former mayors. The mayor, five former mayors, and former city manager, Greg Cuglio, who I think was manager for like 20 years or something. And his talk was about budgeting and like Lacey, you know, has done a pretty good job with managing its budget over the years. And he said there's an optimistic projection you make, and then there's the moderate projection, and then there's the pessimistic. And he's like, my job was to try to keep the council to actually expenditure at the pessimistic projection because things always happen. And that's kind of something that I've said because we don't have any reserve. You know, we don't have a whole system of reserves like some entities do in He was just really advocating that if you can budget at the pessimistic projection, then you're more resilient as things happen. And it's hard to do, but that was 20 years of his experience in Lacey, so I thought I'd share. Commissioner Grant. I saw your hand, Commissioner Grant.

I think you're muted, ma'am.

I was going to say with Ty that I agree. I think that was kind of what I was trying to say the other day that, you know, we have this. We should be thinking about, you know, I think it's summer's job to bring the pessimistic view. And then it's the policy of, you know, of us as the commissioners to decide if we feel comfortable with a more moderate view in order to shave some savings or to move some funds around. And for me, I sent, I just wanted to let folks know that I sent an email earlier today with quite a few questions for summer and for leonard and i'll be following up with them um in a one-on-one meeting just to get those questions answered but um but for example with on this one with fiscal year 28 when i see a 12.4 million dollar fund balance um You know, and we need to find, let's say, $300,000 for a CDB position in a jail or something like that. To me, it would be, you know, a good policy decision to say we need to decide if we can locate $300,000 out of these funds, you know, and make it... you know, and make those kinds of decisions. And, you know, because with all of the funds that we're looking at today are not the general fund. And so, you know, I feel like we should have a little more flexibility about saying, you know, here are our estimates. And I think we can find, you know, 150 for a position here and 200 for a position here and some of these large fund balances. That's just kind of my take on things.

I would just like to say I don't necessarily budget or forecast at the most pessimistic end of the scale I like to think that I budget and do it with a fair amount of accuracy aiming for a sweet spot and I do agree that the board could potentially under the right circumstances have space for to look at shifting expenses, but this is an estimate. And we need to have some time to collect and see the reality of what those collections look like compared to the appropriations and build up a fund balance to support those costs that you've committed.

Yeah, with $34 plus in that account at this point after two months of collection, it's probably more than that. we have to, our recommendation is let's get through 2026. And in early 2027, we sit and look at 2015. We do believe there's gonna be room here because the way in which we understood how this was playing out, the tax on the county and the way in which we're getting final confirmation from Department of Revenue will create some space that as we build the 28, 29 budget, could have a positive impact on lowering that deficit number. We have a 4.5 million in 2028 and a 4 million in 2029. And if this fund, we believe, is going to perform better, we just have to get several months of collection in. And so right about in January, February, we look to sit and talk about, we forecast the biennium build, the big endeavor. This will be a key fund to keep our eyes on about how do we look to address our current deficit. We are, we would be, TO THE BOARD JUST ACKNOWLEDGING THAT ADDING NEW PROGRAMS OR NEW POSITIONS IS SOMETHING THAT WE WOULD ASK THE BOARD TO BE VERY CAUTIOUS WITH SIMPLY BECAUSE WE'RE STILL DEALING WITH COMBINED AFTER WE GET THROUGH THIS YEAR, IT WILL BE 8.5 MILLION IF THINGS HOLD POSITIVELY. AND WE LOOK TO WORK WITH THE BOARD AND OUR OFFICE AND DEPARTMENTS ON ADDRESSING THOSE NUMBERS.

PLUS WE'RE GOING TO HAVE, IF I'M REMEMBERING RIGHT, have a public defense acceleration. We slowed down to get through the biennium. But we were hoping to go to the five-year plan after the first two years. And so that's going to be an automatic increased drain on this account without us doing anything.

That's why you see the numbers rapidly dropping. And we have to make sure that we're committing the needed resources for public defense and what our obligation is for Patrick's shop. Commissioner Clough.

But then it should level out after that, right? Because that's the five years. Or is it going to level out?

That's what she's saying. It gets too far out to... It's fanciful projections.

So I think the one component is that the 26 year gives a bit of a buffer, but then we have to figure out those expenses. What we imagine is it'll level out and then we'll work with the board on what are they comfortable keeping as it'll be much lower. It'll drop below the 5.9, significantly lower than that as Patrick ramps up his expenses and other components.

It's also important to remember that when you look at the financial plan, the EXPENDITURES JUMP ABOUT 5 MILLION PLUS IN 2028 BECAUSE OF THAT IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE THAT THE BOARD DIRECTED, AND THOSE ESTIMATES OF COSTS WERE DEVELOPED LAST YEAR, RIGHT? AND BECAUSE WE'RE STILL KIND OF IN UNCERTAIN TIMES WITH LABOR NEGOTIATIONS AND COLAS AND THINGS LIKE THAT, WE DON'T KNOW, LIKE, THESE FIGURES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. SO IT IS VERY PRUDENT FOR THE BOARD TO MONITOR and wait to see what happens with this fund.

Yeah, and I think the board is very aware that with our cost of living increases for our contracts, we are falling behind. And so that will be a discussion as we build a 28-29 budget as to how do we balance that and keeping our budget most valuable asset, the employees that work day in and day out for the county, keeping them on pace with cost of living, et cetera. There's quite a few challenges that we're balancing in all of the things that we're looking at.

I think I might add also to the story you told, Commissioner Mincer, the classic, the legacy style budgeting is that pessimistic, moderate, optimistic. In my 10 plus years at the county, that classic legacy way is how we've been doing it. Summer has brought a new way of doing it, which is projections to actuals are meeting up almost in alignment. So that classic way of doing it, heard, but what we're trying to create is transparency in the numbers directly related to the projections. And we saw that last year when Summer's projections and the actuals were within a percent, if not less, than what we calculated. I think it's a good story to keep in mind. That's an old way of doing budgeting. It's not how we're doing it with this commission. We are being as transparent and direct with the numbers and summer's numbers are coming in extremely accurate.

I've been doing this for a very long time, and I really do love it.

I brought it up just mainly not as criticism of how we're doing it, but just as nervousness about going beyond. Because we're already going from a pessimistic line to a more actual moderate, what I would think of as a moderate line. I'm comfortable with that, but it makes me nervous to start going, well, let's just hope and pray that these things are going to happen.

I didn't hear it as a criticism. No. As being here for as long as I have, I can feel how people might experience the budget differently. Yeah. It's a new day.

Okay. Thank you. Let's see. So the next sales tax is detention sales tax 1100, which is authorized under RCW 8214-350. It restricts funding to juvenile detention facilities and jails. The sales and use tax required voter approval. It is limited to 1 tenth of 1% and it requires no revenue share with the cities. This fund is currently stretched well past its capacity. I'd like to remind the board that you did take action, budgetary action, to transfer the costs of the 2016 2016 2016 bond issues off of this fund to the tune of approximately $3.6 million annually to the general fund for 2025 and 2026 to give myself time to research our repayment options, which we are hoping to bring back to the board with bond counsel and advisors in coming weeks. this fund does still have to repay the general fund for the payments made over the last couple of years. Moving forward, so that will explain some of the questions received on fund balance projections. If you see here in 2024, I reported to the county manager and I believe we had some one-on-one meetings with the commissioners that this fund had about a $500,000 fund balance projected at the end of the year. It would have had a negative fund balance in 25 had we paid our commitment of $3.6 million.

Which we're not allowed to do under auditing standards.

We are not allowed to do, so we needed to take action. And if I may, this was directly, in my opinion, the result of four to six year period of consistent over appropriation of expenditures with a consistently declining amount year over year of sales tax receipts with no adjustments to those figures. So when you're over projecting your revenue and you're under projecting your expenses and they get way out of whack, right, then our fund balance will quickly diminish. So The estimates that are shown in 26 and 27 are still with no bond payments. And again, those payments are about 3.6 million, 3.7 million. And we are trying to annually working feverishly to get all of the things done so that we can figure out the game plan moving forward. Thank you.

Um, so I know you talked about mentioning, uh, you mentioned transferring a fund, a bond over, uh, to the general fund. Um, can, but there's also two other debt services that are currently two other bonds that are being charged from it. Like, what is it that we're paying for? Out of DST? Yeah. For, uh, in terms of, of, yeah.

There was a bond, the 2015 bond, I believe it is, just finished. Yeah, pay off, it's 2025. 2025. This 2016 bond is the one that was transferred. There was a 2010 bond, I believe that was paid off in 22. So there's no other bond commitments on this fund once we get this 2016 bond issued.

So the big one is the 2016 that's currently just being held or paid out of general fund on them.

And based on the direction the board gave, once summer has, once we get through this current budget cycle, season cycle, summer goes back to that, figures it out, comes back, gets direction from the board. And then we commence paying the general fund back. So that fund will get taxed and drawn down.

OK. So now we're going to move along, just make sure there was no questions, to treatment sales tax 1180. This one is authorized under RCW 8214-460 and restricts funding to mental health and chemical dependency. The sales and use tax statutorily may be imposed by the legislative body and it's limited to 1 tenth of a percent and requires no revenue share. This fund is fully committed at this time. As a reminder to the board, there were expenditures that were presented from public health, I believe, social services to transfer some level of expenditure authority or appropriations from this fund to the mental health and developmental disabilities earmarked funds, which are commonly referred to as millage. For this 26-27 biennium to alleviate fund balance pressures on this fund with plans to transfer those costs back in the 28-29 biennial development. Oh, and one other thing I wanted to highlight is for a period of time, statutorily, this fund was allowed to be used to supplant costs from other funding avenues to this fund. That period of supplanting allowance, if you will, by the legislature has now passed. It is fully expired and there's no supplanting allowed from current program costs from other funding sources to this fund.

But if it has been TST funded, it can stay?

Yes, my ask has been of the wonderful Jennifer Smith is that everything that was done to transfer costs from TST to the millage is well documented that it firmly lives in this fund. It's just a temporary relief to maintain fund balance and it will come back. So that should not be a supplanting scenario.

Can you explain that just a little bit further because we heard from a couple of offices and just using TSD, right?

And how does that, I would need to see what the request is and where the funding for those program costs came from previously. I believe it was like $1.5 to $2 million that was transferred off of TST to the earmarked funds that come in as millage. And we, again, will transfer those back. But any additions to the fund of current funded activities from other sources, to TST is not allowed by statute.

Even though it might have been in the past, it's not now.

We would need to look into that. It is clearly stated that only new programs may be added to the treatment sales tax funding. And that is not advised at this time because, again, actions were taken to remove expenses from the fund, right? To create space and to alleviate pressures strategically for a period of time and then to shift them back. So if we were to add more costs, more expenses, and then shift those costs back, then we're just putting ourselves right back in the boat we were in when the decision was made to shift the costs out.

There's like programs from TST that like, completely TST funded. They're partially, and we've adjusted that over time.

Like it's gone up, it's come down, you know, based on supportable and reasonable business needs. Right.

Yeah. Well, I'm just, yeah. And other fundings. Yeah. Whether there was a need to expand it or there was some other funding source that was helping out criminal justice treatment account or whatnot. So is that like this, the planning thing, is it locked in at a point?

That would require a little more research on my part. Um, I don't know when the expiration of the period of allowable supplanting ended.

The next slide shows.

Oh, yes. Thank you. So this is the, it shows your fund balances for 2024, which is showing a significantly high, and then 25, this fund balance went down by about $5 million because there were costs that were charging to this fund. We shifted expenses off in the 26-27 biennium, and those are the estimated fund balances for each year. Those transfers happened Again, from TST to the mental health and developmental disabilities earmarked funds, which is called knowledge.

Because, Summer, we had a presentation on this last year with the board. Yes. If the trend that we had for 24-25, that spending trend, stayed for 26-27, the fund actually went into the negative.

Yes, it would have been completely decimated.

Yeah, so we had to, if the board remembers, they adjusted their spending within that fund. I think we had Dr. Freiheit and Shailene at the table providing some options for the board on how to calibrate that so that we would not go into the negative. It would leave a ton of programs unfunded and that was just a bit detrimental.

Yes. And for folks who may have a longer perspective. Treatment sales tax needed to be drawn down.

Yes.

And so that was happening, but it was forgotten that it needed to also be turned around at some point when it went below that waterline.

Yeah.

And that's what the action that summer.

Yeah, you're correct. Josh had built up a fund balance and it was like, well, that's too much. Let's draw that down. So just keeping the boards fingers on the budget dials to adjust so that we're not going into the negative and still supporting the as many services and programs to those that are at greatest need for as long as we can and doing the best with what the resources we have.

Yeah. It can be hard for the folks receiving that service because they feel like they've got a lot of money and then there's not enough money. So just checking those dials is going to be good.

I think, yeah, following on that same theme, right? My goal, um, and the goal of the team is to, um, hone in the way that we're forecasting so that there aren't these wild swings in either direction, right? It would be best for everyone's blood pressure if we have, you know, can maintain a level of fund balance and understanding of what operationally you can increase, right, within different funding sources. That would be my goal. you've been creating a lot of consistency in just the last two years.

Are you saying, I'll get through it to you, are you saying keep a, like maybe keep a bigger fund balance so that there's sort of a- Steady.

You can, whether the- Are you saying actively manage and monitor? Yes.

Actively managing and monitoring and making, go ahead, sorry.

No, no. Ms. Walker is totally, is completely right on that. And this isn't meant to be a statement about any past prank, but my goal is to, yes, actively monitor, maintain, live, breathe, understand the dynamic of every one of these funds because for a budget person, we do live slightly in a world of make-believe, but these are living organisms for us, right? And Josh has heard he's laughing because he's heard me say it. It is something that we can really control, right? Like you get a feel for it and you understand the dynamics of how the fund performs and we get a better control to provide you better tools, better understanding as to what the capacity is of the resources that you have at your disposal.

My point is that when you say manage, I mean like the, you were saying the blood pressure goes up when you think that you've overcommitted and we're gonna have, we started something and we can't continue and we have to pull it back. That's like, you know, that yo-yoing of, you know, oh, we've got some money, let's do this thing we wanna do or let's give that office or that program what it needs. Oh, we don't have that money. And then revenue goes down. Yeah. So I'm saying, I mean, I don't see that. I mean, to me, I don't see how you, it's sort of like when I said the county doesn't have reserves. Well, each one of these is like its own little organism, as you say. So each one kind of needs its own quote unquote reserve. A reserve for the treatment sales tax would be keeping a $2 million fund balance, for example, or whatever number that should be. But it seems like the only way to really do it is to, is to, you can monitor it, but you can't, I mean, you're trying to not unhire people or kill programs that you started. So monitoring is not gonna be helpful unless you have the means somewhere or somehow to address the downturn whenever that happens, right? Am I missing something? Is there a tool out there I'm not seeing?

No, I think what I would say, Chair, is the, The place that we're at, and it's probably the deficit that has forced us into all of these different funds, but what I see developing in a real healthy way, and there's still room to go, but with our budget office interacting with the departments, offices, the program staff, to make sure that that information is flowing, Otherwise, what could take place is if staff have old forecasts, they're charting their course, and they're doing what they need to do. They're getting approval from their advisory board to spend dollars, and the blood pressure goes up when there's a, oh, shoot, right as we're ready to make these decisions.

They can make more reasonable requests because they're...

and because they're communicating in a closer amount. And that's the work behind the scenes where I really applaud Summer and Jennifer and Dolly, the budget team, and also all the departments and offices, budget and finance teams, that interaction and communication about where things are at, and also talking about, well, we thought it was over here, or we planned to do this. all of that shared information and creating that pipeline so that we're not having the discussion when it's time to make decisions for the board, and then you're hearing bad news without any time to course correct. It becomes a year-long conversation. Board, it's time to update you on this. For example, when we talked about HP 2015, We know we're going to be back in January, February to talk to the board about, OK, now we have about six months of collection. Now we feel we can base a trend. Board, here's some options for you. We need some policy direction on what you want to do and where you want to go with this.

And so on this one in particular, but in all these types of funds, the staff that's out there implementing it, the connectivity between them and the budget staff has led to this longer runway to decide on what the programs are. So it slows that yo-yo effect down. Just huge thanks to our department staff for hearing and understanding and then communicating these difficult messages while we're getting back on track.

Especially in public health, public works, there's so many different funds and different... dynamics to that that the conversation and again we are growing this it's not we're not saying it's perfect yet we are growing an environment where those staff communicating creates better information that rises to the top of the board to make decisions that's the work that the commissioners might not see you might see some are running around upstairs that's what she's doing she's creating connectivity with all those groups in a good way more likely i'm kidding

I have to say Jennifer does a really great job working with Shaylin on this particular fund. And without her, I don't know what I would do, so. Okay, so this is a repeat of slide number two, I think it was. This is decision, I guess, checkpoint time unless there's more.

Yeah. Well, I was kind of gonna respond to something Josh said.

a while ago, we kind of got away from it, so I don't know how relevant I can make this question, but we were talking about the programs, and we were looking out at fiscal year 26 and 27, and Josh mentioned turning the dials, and we were talking about programs at that point, not necessarily the overall fund. And so when we're talking about turning the dials as it relates to programming, How do we know what that's going to do at a programmatic level when we're turning dials? And how do we measure success to make sure when we're turning those dials, we're doing it in a way that's going to maximize the value of the dollars we're spending? That's a great question.

With this fund in particular, TST, this has a built-in cycle to come to the board. And also, as Commissioner Grant knows, because she sat on this advisory group, to have an advisory group pretty close. I think we are very fortunate to have Shaylin who has her, she's very close to this work. And I think that I would point to the last budget cycle we had where we spent, gosh, I think a whole hour just on TST. And she was talking about the different programs and where things were going. The dials would be turned by the commissioners. What we would do is bring the information and say, hey, this is where it's trending. and then allow Shaylin and Dr. Freiheit to come to the table and provide that interaction so that you're getting the information if we have to adjust down or if we have to adjust up, but it'll be a board direction.

Okay, I appreciate that. And I'd like to take that kind of an approach with a lot of the different programs in various offices and departments, because I really appreciate how Shaylin came in and essentially gave us a program inventory and talked about, for most of them, she talked about the metrics and what it's actually doing, what the impact is on the community. And I think it'd be really great to see that kind of a program inventory from all of the offices and departments because that's like the only way we're gonna know at a deeper level what our decisions are actually gonna result in. So I appreciate that for this one, we kind of have an idea of that, but I'm just thinking that would be a good approach to take for others because I feel comfortable and confident in this fund that we know what's going on with it and that we know when we turn the dials, we have staff expertise in the room to help us understand what those impacts would be. And I think it'd be good for us to have that approach on others too.

Yeah. This last, um, budget presentation where we had all of the offices or most of the offices and departments actually start that concept of what inventory impacts i thought that was a huge shift and change over the last year so depending upon time and what level of detail we get into that we've just started that journey is a really good sign with our offices also yeah that's awesome i think we're building the framework for that having more meaningful conversations to your point

Yeah, that's great. I know it takes time, so we can't do it today or this year, but over time, I think that's a better approach probably when we're facing the structural deficit. Most definitely. Yeah.

Pass it to you. So just to check in, what we're looking for is by Tuesday or sooner, but at the latest, Tuesday, September 29th, that we're getting direction from the board on how to take the $5.5 million and distribute it. Our desire would be to come to the board for the next three weeks, every week to talk about it. Next week, we look to talk about the interest sweeps and the conversation that the board asked for follow-up on. Summer will do that research, then we can come and talk. And then the following week, take a deeper dive into the proposed scenarios. And again, they're simply proposed for the board's perspective to give us direction. What we then have to do is take those numbers, work with the offices and departments on giving them the final numbers, and then building that into an overall midterm budget bill that Summer then does the mechanics of getting it for the board for final approval. And of course, we'll be utilizing the presentations at the offices and departments. A huge thank you to the departments. We got presentations from all of them. A huge thank you to the offices. We got significantly more participation, which I think really helps you to understand the decisions that are being proposed. So that's a little bit of a look ahead, and I think we only have one.

Is that the last slide?

No.

So, yeah. Well, I was just going to say this was if the board had the, you know, direction for us to proceed, but I believe we're coming back. So this was more of a, we don't have to come back. I mean, if the board has a.

And this is where you heard some of the organizational leaders during their presentation, the sooner you can get us that number, the sooner we can take those actions. So that's your decision point. And once that's done, then the budget office can start that work and communication.

I mean, I'll say that I have a short list of groups that I'd like to try to work towards something, kind of like what Mr. Graham was talking. But to me, scenario two should be the starting point of which those adjustments come from. So I feel very strongly about that. And I won't be here next week's discussion, so I'll just throw that out there in case that's useful to you.

And I would say any... Commissioner, if you have thoughts.

I'll type up what I have and give it to the county manager so he can type in with my thoughts. Because I've got a few things that I just would like to find some solution for and some arguments that were made by elected officials that I piqued my interest, but I'd like to hear staff's response to them before I do this.

Yeah, if you want to send us that information, we can summarize it and then disseminate it for our next budget discussion next week. Knowing that I think we have a couple of weeks where next week you are with Lott on a work-related tour. Then I believe, Commissioner Grant, the following week is on a work-related trip as well. So that's why we're looking to continue this conversation going so that by the 29th, board has needed information and can make some adjustments in those scenarios uh are points for discussion for the board to dig in and uh but to josh's point i know everybody is waiting for those final numbers and there's a lot of work to be done once those numbers come i think by the end of the month is good Yes, it's required to allow Summer to have the time she needs to do what needs to be done. And then also the departments, because we have to give time for the departments and offices to work those numbers in, process it physically into the system. And then Summer still has to turn around a pretty tight schedule timeline. If you're curious about it, just walk into her office. She has calendars all over the place with deadlines and dates that are important for us to keep track of.

Anything else for today's meeting? We have committee reports on our agenda. If anyone has a committee report for an external committee, Do you have time? Check my list. I don't have any new ones. Okay, thank you. This scared me.

None here.

I had ORCA this morning, but I had to get out early because of the forum. So I want to look back at the recording and talk to them about how the meeting went. But we're talking about fee increases for demolition and asbestos. And so I'll look back and see how that conversation went. I know we've had some.

It's been on the table for a while.

Yeah. It's been on the table for a while. We've received some public comments about it. You know, people don't want to see that, but ORCA is going to be in a tough spot here pretty soon too, because of the state dropping the core funding and jurisdictional assessments. I don't know what's going to happen with those based on our conversation. I don't know if other jurisdictions are having similar conversations about reductions in there you know so we'll see how that goes but uh our finance committee has been on a break for a little while because we passed the budget and now we're coming back uh in october to renew the finance committee meetings again so there will be a lot more to come in october for me on orca perfect okay thank you everybody