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
There are many times when I disagree with Mr. Jones’ published remarks. Here he seems to have done his homework and put forth a seemingly cogent argument. The county’s rebuttal would make interesting reading to many.
Nick:
How about a formal request to the SJC Council for a response to your research and findings? Their response, if any, would be very instructional and timely, given the August ballot.
Thanks for your research and analysis. You have helped me determine how I will likely vote on proposed increases, subject to a compelling rebuttal from the county.
I see two factors not addressed in Nick’s analysis. The first is tourism. SJC experiences a significant impact, as well as benefit from, tourism. I don’t know what the comparative tourism numbers are for PC, but I’d imagine that SJC has considerably more tourists than PC. While our county enjoys much benefit in the private industry from tourism, it does exact a toll on our infrastructure. Is this toll balanced by the increase in sales tax revenue derived or is there a net loss?
The second issue not addressed, is the impact of a high percentage of second homes in SJC. Infrastructure needs to be created and maintained to support these homes, but they are largely unoccupied resulting in the county expense of having them exist without the corresponding increase in sales tax revenues that would occur if the homes had full time occupants.
I don’t know the net affect of either of these factors. They may blunt Nick’s position, or they may support it, but he may want to address them…
Dear Jim,
Thanks for your comment. According to the Pacific County EDC, Pacific County has slightly more tourism by revenue and vastly more by visitation–the Lewis and Clark Historical Park alone sees 1000,000 overnight campers annually. Tourism brings SJC $116,400,000 and Pacific County $120,200,000. Tourism supports 1580 jobs in SJC and 2060 in Pacific County. (WA. Dept. of Commerce.)
Roughly 38.6% of the 13,313 houses in SJC are second homes. 37.6% of Pacific County’s 15,547 residences are second homes. (US Census)
Nick Jones
Nick, do you have any analysis on the two CD&P departments?
What are the relative budgets?
How many FTEs?
What is the average cost of their FTEs?
What percentage of their revenue stream is supplied by permit fees, penalties,or outside grants, as opposed to general tax revenues?
What has been their response to CAO?
What has been their response to SMA?
I very much appreciate the work that Nick has done here. The Council endorsement of the proposed tax increase sounded like there were three or four different opinions about how the County should proceed; the concession that even this tax increase will not solve the problems we face only argues for voting it down and forcing the County to confront the fact that it spends too much, mostly, apparently, on line items other than tangible services to the public. In response to the question raised above about the impact of our large number of second homes, it seems to me that the County does not incur costs for infrastructure for the majority of these homes. The County isn’t building roads or sewers or power lines–what costs remain? Most people building second homes pay large amounts for permits and pay for their own septic. Wouldn’t a family here only a few months (or weeks) have far less impact on everything? But still pay the same property taxes as the rest of us?
Common mistake made by Nick here: in order to really compare Counties, you need to include the budgets of all of their incorporated cities and towns as well. For example, City of Raymon in Pacific Co., has it’s own police force (thus reducing requirements on County Sheriff). In San Juan we only have Friday Harbor, Pacific County has Raymond, Ilwaco, South Bend, and Long Beach. Only way to accurately compare is to include Planning Departments, etc. from each of the incorporated areas as well. I haven’t done the math, but I suspect if you do, the numbers will come out quite a bit differently. Before we jump on Nick’s bandwagon, maybe Margie could provide a bit of the more nuanced perspective on this?
fascinating discussion; i hope we continue it and keep seeking answers.
I just received my August ballot. No rebuttal yet from the County to Nick’s analysis? Then, absent any defense from the County, a no vote on the tax increase from me, especially with the acknowledgement that the increase will not solve the problem.
Dear Steve,
I will get on the CD&P numbers for you–the preliminary impression is that they actually spend close to what we do for planning–though their permit turnaround time is much more rapid.
Dear Mitch, as stated in the analysis only South Bend/Raymond and Long Beach ( I mistakenly omitted the LB police force) have their own police forces. Other than that the services provided by incorporated towns in PC are fairly minimal. In any case, the PC sheriff’s budget including corrections and communications comes to $2,458,615 while SJC spending on the same comes to $2,952,448. Pretty darn similar. My point is that front line public services are relatively comparable between the two counties. Administration and bureaucracy (plus committees) is where SJC is off the charts. And I made an error in General Administration. SJC actually spends $919,096 on this, not $667,946 as I wrote in the analysis. Pacific County spends $166,970 on General Admin. Cutting our admin budget alone…
Continued post:
to Pacific county levels would spare the Sheriff’s Dept. any cuts. Our leaders have made a political decision to cut services rather than bureaucracy. We need hold them accountable for this, rather than accept the false crisis laid out for us.
Nick Jones
I’m heartened that folks are looking at these issues. I think that we’re all open to any comparisons that make sense–and would really like our media to analyze them, too. With respect to “planning” costs, it is important to keep in mind that we combine our permit and enforcement functions with our GMA/CAO and “natural resources” employees. A County that still has real estate sales and construction to speak of will have people processing permits, as we used to. Instead, we have an embarrassment of planners.
While we do not have other jurisdictions’ help availble to our sheriff’s staff, I wonder if we have much of the crime that would require that kind of aid? I support keeping the Sheriff fully-staffed. Prop. 1 doesn’t do that. It lets the County switch the new money to the Sheriff, and then spend how it always has on other things. No new deputies.