Guest Column: Budget Comparisons between San Juan and Pacific Counties

By Nick Jones

These last months I have been minded to dig a little deeper into the rolling financial crisis our county leaders tell us we are faced with.  Notwithstanding the many excellent, dedicated county staff we do enjoy, much of what our county does with itself seems kind of pointless.  So I have been researching budgets.  Here is what I came up with.

Coming up with a truly equivalent comparison from county to county is extremely difficult: Counties all spin budget numbers in slightly different ways, counties vary wildly in percentages of population in incorporated towns and cities, percentages of unoccupied or vacation homes can drive up county expenses and drive down population figures.  And of course geography play a large role in the expense of administering a given area–a county composed of islands is a special case when it comes to delivering services to all residents–though there is some adjustment too for the much greater mileage of county maintained roads in any mainland county.

That said, the discrepancy between all levels of SJC budget and spending and that of other rural, waterfront Western WA counties is shocking.   In the raw form, unexamined numbers from other rural Western Washington show San Juan County spending as a wild outlier.  Total county spending per capita, including general fund and non discretionary spending, ranges from  $825 per capita in Island County (Whidbey and Camano Islands), $990 per capita in Clallam County to $1084 per capita in tiny Wahkiakum County, with practically no services provided by incorporated towns.  San Juan County total spending currently runs $2613 per capita, or 241% of Wahkiakum County’s expenditures.  Pacific County in South West Washington seems to have more in common with SJC than any other Washington county.  It has many of the same factors and limitations as SJC, and some unique or steeper challenges than we have here.  Their raw budget comes to $1464 per capita, or exactly 56% of San Juan County spending.

In order to further investigate Pacific County, I spoke with staff at the Auditor’s office and their version of CD&P, as well as doing extensive Internet research.  In many ways the similarities between our counties are striking.  Pacific County is a cash accounting county, as is SJC.  It is geographically enormous, wrapping around Willapa Bay, somewhat mitigating the lack of ferries.  Driving from the furthest point to furthest point is close to a three-hour adventure.  It is demographically similar (21272 to our 15484), economically recognizable, if not an exact parallel (timber, tourism, second home construction, shellfish and fisheries).  It is also similar to SJC in that it is not subject to urban sprawl or commuting development pressure, rather population increases are based on lifestyle, retirement and internal economic considerations–which is to say population dynamics are impacted rather than dictated by large urban centers close by (as opposed, say to Skamania county, or certainly any of the Puget Sound Counties.)  They also have a large number of unoccupied homes as do we.  Pacific County also has an enormous expanse of shoreline touching on three major bodies of water: the Columbia River, Pacific Ocean and Willapa Bay.  They also have hundreds of miles of salmon spawning streams, active fisheries, significant timber harvest and large-scale agriculture.  By any measures their natural resource issues are significantly more acute and complex than ours.  Also, Pacific County has a significantly larger population of economically stressed residents and so has a larger demand for county health and human services.

Further, the vast majority of Pacific County residents live in unincorporated areas or incorporated areas that offer little or no services and so are drawing on county resources the same way residents of Eastsound or Lopez Village are, rather than residents of incorporated Friday Harbor. (the smaller, incorporated towns in Pacific County do remit roughly $250,000 back to the county to defray the cost of sheriff’s coverage in those towns)

South Bend and Raymond (which are adjacent and pool services) contain 5519 people or 25.94% of Pacific County, as opposed to Friday Harbor’s 13.7% of the SJC population.  These towns do have their own police force but maintain minimal levels of infrastructure otherwise.

Side by side the comparison is telling.  Our general fund is $16,924,893, which brings us to a per capita expenditure of $1093.  Pacific County’s general fund is $8,150,737, for a per capita expenditure of $383.16.  As of now they have weathered the poor economy with minimal layoffs, no furlough days, and no reduced counter service hours.

SJC spends $504,276 on our County Council, Pacific County spends $316,789.  General Administration consumes $667,946 in SJC,versus $166,970 in Pacific County.  Our prosecutor burns through $926,685 per year, and claims he cannot do his job at the current funding level.  Pacific County, with 37% more residents, far more serious crime (in 2005, most recent year for which I could find statistics Pacific County had 2 murders, 2 rapes, 2 robberies, 24 assaults, 248 burglaries, 375 thefts and 41 auto thefts, versus 0 murders, 3 rapes, o robberies, 6 assaults, 103 burglaries, 161 thefts and 22 auto thefts in SJC), and a much larger geographical area spends a meager $676,367.  None of the Pacific County staff I spoke with felt that their levels of prosecution were inadequate.  Nor has there been any discussion, so far as I can tell, of choosing not to prosecute shoplifters in Pacific County for budget reasons.

It could be that the discrepancy between SJC and Pacific County spending is due to Pacific County’s more stable, avowedly rural population, as opposed to our more mobile, urban-type demographic.  It could be that their commissioners, all longtime Pacific County residents, are more rooted and vested in Pacific County and as such are more grounded in their decision-making.  As a significant note, every Pacific County employee I spoke with reflected very warm, supportive feelings for their executive branch.  I will leave the comparison to the imagination on that one.

It is certainly true that living expenses are much lower in Pacific County than in SJC, and so one would expect to find higher levels of pay in SJC.  What is surprising though is to find much higher levels of staffing in SJC departments that have a lower workload than their Pacific County counterparts.  Our council consumes the full time attention of 8 people.  Pacific County administers 533% more land mass and 37% more people than San Juan County and their commission scrapes by with a mere 3.6 FTEs (Full Time Equivalents).  The Pacific County Prosecutor requires 6.7 FTEs to discipline their populace, while San Juan County boasts 11 and again complains that is insufficient.  General administration in Pacific County employs 1.87 FTEs while we need 5.5 FTEs to organize ourselves.  Over and over again Pacific County and SJC are fairly close in spending and FTEs in all measures of delivery of frontline public services, but miles apart on administration and bureaucracy.

While Geography and service expectations are definitely a factor in the spending gap, I would forward that the most significant factor is likely our long-standing disconnect between the population and executive branch and the fact that years of uninterrupted increases in tax revenue have allowed unchecked expansion in county government without any real hard nosed number scrubbing.  Now that tax receipts have faltered it is time to re-imagine what the county does and how it does it.  It is an interesting administrative and political choice to focus on front-line and public service staff cuts; that is our elected officials have chosen to cut heavily the most visible and crucial wing of county government.  Tellingly, Pacific County has chosen to cut back office and administrative expenses while maintaining their service profile.  Further, Pacific County Commissioners have considered their economy too fragile to ask for a tax increase.  Despite the downturn, San Juan County still spends more, dollar for dollar, than we did in 2008, thanks to the levy lift in 2009.  Recession notwithstanding our general fund is 10% larger today than in 2008.  In Pacific County general fund spending is down roughly 17%.  Now the Council has sent another tax request to voters.  Rather than asking for more money, perhaps our leadership should be asking how it is that Pacific County manages to administer a larger, more diverse, more ecologically fragile, more socially complex county than SJC with a fraction of the workforce, at a fraction of the cost and with no recession induced reduction in office time or front-line staff.  Now that would be a consultant’s report worth reading.

Nick Jones is a Lopez Island resident