King County Executive Dow Constantine is giving his 2012 budget speech as I type, and—surprise—it’s good news! No, our sucky economy isn’t any less sucky, and no, tax revenues aren’t much recovering. Instead, cost savings coming from health care reforms and other efficiencies have more than offset any anticipated shortfalls.
“We have 61 million reasons to thank our employees for partnering with us,” Constantine emphasized, referring to the $61 million in savings realized from the “Healthy Incentives” health care reforms first implemented by former executive Ron Sims. “This is a budget of which we all should be very proud,” kvelled Constantine in opening his speech.
A positive, cheery, budget speech that congratulates public employees instead of vilifying them. I don’t know such a thing still existed.
Sounds too good to be true….probably is.
Um, they cut a LOT from Medicaid, almost all preventative care is gone now.
Medicaid is not a county function.
@3, sh, KK’s just practicing its typing.
Speaking as a county employee, I watched that presentation hardly believing my ears. I was all set to pack up my bags and head for the unemployment line come January, and I’m so happy to see that’s not the case.
I actually disagree that Healthy Incentives is having any effect at all. It’s a pretty worthless program. Health Care savings are much more the product of significant increases in the deductibles for our benefits that went into effect last year.
But still, I’m WAY happier shelling out more cash for my prescriptions and keeping my job.
@2 – 3 already beat me to it, but I’m going to call you a dumbass anyway, just because that was such a fucking stupid thing to say.
On a related note, I was really pleased to hear that he earmarked a million bucks for a one-time payment to help out the non-profits that have shouldered the effects of the last 3 years budget cuts.
On the occasion of an unexpectedly balanced budget, a shout out to KC Budget chief Dwight Dively might be in order, too. One recalls that one of McGinn’s first acts as Mayor was to demote Dively out of being City budget chief in favor of Beth Goldberg, who’d been deputy budget chief at the County. Once Dow found out, he immediately hired Dwight away to head the County budget office. That was a trade that worked out really well for the County. Congratulations to Dow and Dwight.
@gg – Didn’t know about that. Thanks for the info!
@8, you bet. Dwight had been with the City budget office 16 years, so he had a depth of knowledge Dow was able to plug right into.
Liberals balance the budget if given time.