King County will have to eliminate 60 open positions and make much more dire budget cuts next year unless it gets help from the state Legislature, County Executive Dow Constantine said Tuesday.
The county will be forced to close most of its 10 public health clinics next year, Constantine said, if the state Legislature doesn’t act to let the county collect more property taxes or give it another way to raise revenue.
“We’d be fortunate if we’re able to figure out how to keep two health clinics open out of the 10 we have,” Constantine said in an interview Tuesday. “That is the level of cuts we’re talking about here.”
Constantine issued the warning as he released budget modifications halfway through the county’s two-year budget cycle. The modifications trim $12.6 million from the county’s approximately $750 million annual general fund budget.
Next year’s cuts, without changes from the Legislature, would be closer to $35 million, Constantine said.
“At this time, it appears these cuts will require eliminating nearly all remaining General Fund support for human services and our Public Health clinics,” Constantine wrote to the Metropolitan King County Council. “Additional reductions to programs that support individuals in the legal system, such as services in Family Court, are almost certain.”
The budget crunch, which Constantine began sounding the alarm about more than a year ago, is due to recent inflation that, compounded with state laws limiting how the county can raise money, has meant expenses have risen far faster than revenues in recent years.
State law limits counties to no more than 1 percent annual growth in the overall amount of property tax they collect (plus the value of new construction). A longtime bete noir of local progressives (Constantine has been railing against it for over a decade), the 1 percent cap was passed by the Legislature in 2007, after courts struck down a previous voter-approved version sponsored by anti-tax activist Tim Eyman.
“We are in one of the most prosperous, affluent places in the country. And the only reason that we are facing the prospect of eliminating public health clinics for the neediest in our community is because of ridiculous tax law that does not allow revenues to come anywhere near keeping up with inflation and the growth in our population,” Constantine said.
Over the last three years, Constantine said, inflation has been a sum total of nearly 23 percent. At the same time, the county’s property tax revenues, rising by 1 percent per year plus new construction, have risen a sum total of 8.1 percent, Constantine said.
The state further limits what sorts of taxes counties can collect. So while cities can collect various business taxes, like Seattle’s JumpStart tax on large, high-paying employers, counties are limited to property and sales taxes.
A push in the Legislature last year to raise the 1 percent cap on property taxes failed to pass either the House or the Senate, amid unanimous opposition from Republicans and disagreement among Democrats, who control both houses.
Property taxes comprise 57 percent of King County’s general fund. At times, that can provide more stability than sales taxes, which tend to swing more wildly with the ups and downs of the economy.
King County is further limited by another state law, which applies just to the state’s largest county, preventing it from creating new levies to supplant general fund spending.
The general fund is a small portion of the county’s $8 billion annual budget. Most of the county’s funding is obligated to go toward specific purposes: Bus fare has to go to bus service, sewage fees go toward sewage service, parks levy money goes toward parks.
The general fund is more discretionary, but still most of it is already spoken for. One-third of the general fund goes toward contracts with cities, like providing police service for smaller cities in the county. Another third goes toward state mandated functions, like running a jail, prosecutor’s office and public defense agency.
That leaves a third of the general fund, including things like King County Elections, public health and human services, to absorb most of the cuts, Constantine said.
