When Clark County Commissioners Marc Boldt and Tom Mielke were in the state Legislature a decade ago, they supported the repeal of the state motor vehicle excise tax and shrugged off concerns about the impact on revenues.
“I’m for it. I think we can afford it and the people have wanted it for a long time,” Boldt said in 1999 as a 17th District lawmaker.
Mielke, who represented the 18th District, said that year that “even though people are yelling the sky is falling,” budgets would recover.
Voters approved Initiative 695 in 1999. After the initiative was ruled unconstitutional, the Legislature repealed the tax.
On Wednesday, Boldt and Mielke sat with Commissioner Steve Stuart in their roles as the Board of Health. They listened to why Clark County Public Health faces a $4 million shortfall for the 2011-12 budget.
The department’s director told commissioners that, unlike most budget shortfalls of late, this one isn’t because of the recession.
Instead, it’s the result of a flat financing structure that was cobbled together for public health after the state’s motor vehicle excise tax was repealed, said Director John Wiesman.
Boldt said after the meeting that he still doesn’t think it’s appropriate to charge a lot of money for car tabs in order to pay for health care.
“But it’s a long way from Olympia to this job,” Boldt said. “At that time, I didn’t think it would hurt. It did hurt and it still does.”
After the tax was repealed, the state contributed $2.1 million out of its general fund to Clark County Public Health, Wiesman said. The state gives that same amount for the county’s biennial budget (every two years) and has never increased it despite the fact county population has increased from 345,238 to 435,600 in the past 10 years.
Cities don’t contribute
Also, cities used to give up a portion of their share of motor vehicle excise tax revenue to the county for providing health services.
Since the tax was repealed, cities no longer contribute specifically to public health, Wiesman said.
Both Boldt and Mielke said the cities should be helping bear the burden.
“It’s a conversation we have to pursue, not only with Vancouver, but with the other cities too,” Boldt said.
“It’s quite obvious the major users are residents of (Vancouver),” Mielke said. “They need to be paying a bigger part.”
The health department has shed 73 staff positions since 1998. It has contracted out some work — such as administering WIC, which provided nutritional services to 15,744 women, infants and children in 2008 — to nonprofit agencies, and discontinued other programs, such as having its own lab for communicable disease testing.
Still, no program covers its own costs, Wiesman said. Grants, which can pay for some services, stay flat or decrease, and fees have stayed flat.
The department’s revenues are $15.9 million. The county pays nearly $3 million out of its general fund for public health, and the state contributes $2.1 million. Other fees bring in just over $1 million, leaving the department $4 million short of its $26 million goal.
Wiesman said he will be submitting his proposed budget soon to the county’s budget office. The shortfall might be resolved by a combination of moves, such as cutting staff or asking commissioners to increase fees for environmental public health services.
The shortfall will have to be resolved by December when commissioners adopt the 2011-12 budget.
Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4508 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.
