If you’re looking for a good time, you might want to steer clear of the King County Courthouse.Here’s what a few county officials had to say this afternoon, after the King County Council unanimously adopted a 2009 budget that included $93 million in cuts:
County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg: “We just can’t do this again.”
County Council Member Reagan Dunn: “These are unprecedented cuts.”
County Council Member Pete Von Reichbauer: “Lifeboats aren’t helpful unless we give them oars.”
County Council Member Dow Constantine: “This is the worst budget in the history of King County.”
County Council Member Larry Phillips: “We are certainly in bad times now.”
I just got back from the King County Council’s press conference, which started moments after the Council voted 9-0 in favor of adopting the 2009 budget. King County Executive Ron Sims’ “lifeboat” for human services will sink on July 1, 2009, if the county doesn’t come up with $8 million to keep it afloat. The county has pledged to go to the state legislature for new funding sources, but any exact details about those funding sources remain elusive. The county, meanwhile, continues to grouse about “unfunded mandates” from the state—perhaps not the best strategy when asking the Legislature for a favor.
Phillips says the county’s quest for new funding “is not just a King County story. When we tell the story, it will resonate across the state. We are joining up with other Washington counties.”
County officials point to the 1% annual cap on property tax increases taxes as a major cause for what Phillips calls its “horrendous problem”; however, Phillips says, he doesn’t think that “we’ll be demanding any particular solution.”
However, those of you looking forward to wrapping your deep-fried Snickers bar in a deep-fried elephant ear while paying five dollars to puke your guts out on a whirling death trap need not fear: The King County Fair will be fully funded. The county fair was threatened with closure until very recently in the budget process.
Phillips says “the fair is one of those connections between city and rural life. We came very close to losing that over the last several decades due to sprawl.” It will be funded this year using a one-time appropriation from the county’s parks department. Phillips also volunteers the absolutely mind-blowing statistic that there are about 26,000 horses in King County, and the largest equestrian community in the state. With Metro cutting 5% of its total budget, we might need those horses to pull our buses around.
The Agricultural Program, which includes the county fair, will be fully funded through the year, despite earlier fears that it would be cut or placed in Sims’ lifeboat. Council Member Kathy Lambert says that the agricultural programs are “in and in to stay.”
In the meantime, the Domestic Violence Unit of the King County Sheriff’s department has been cut in half. All domestic violence cases will now be directed to a general case file and given the same priority as other investigations. The Vice Unit and Fraud Unit have been eliminated. The King County Prosecutor’s Office has cut 27 positions. King County, as Council Member Bob Ferguson put it today, is “down to the bone.”
There’s a King County Fair?
Any news on the City budget? I think it was supposed to be approved today also.
All the budget cuts are bad, but how fare the arts?
Why didn’t we axe the fair to pay for more prosecutors? WTF?
Clearly the County Fair, which honestly sucks donkey cock, is more important than keeping us safe on the streets or provide us some basic services if we end up homeless.
Thank God our priorities are as they are!!
I need a ref for that horse stat. STAT.
Oh boo fucking hoo about the 1% rate hike cap. I’m sure the county will continue to reassess properties at higher values despite the decline in home prices.
donkey cock, really
all I ever got was 4H cock and some FAA cock
horny late teen aged, alone in the barns late at night with cigarettes and some beer, god those were the days
King County will be in bankruptcy by the next cycle, the magic money days are over – for a few years
And if you think King County will get pity from the state legislature. well, I do have some donkey dick to sell
please, keep some focus, state budget is off 5 billion and mounting
welcome to the real time world of recession/depression and it will get much worse
and the Stranger is doing reviews of 40.00 dinner houses – and very expensive music tickets
brother can you spare a dime
Now that they’re cutting vice, my Saturday nights are a lot more fun!
See you at Rick’s!
The King County Fair is lame and doesn’t have “deep-fried Snickers bar in a deep-fried elephant ear” nor “whirling death trap[s]”, which is probably the reason why fair attendance has been declining every year.
All it is are 4-H kids showing off their farm animals and huge vegetables that farmers have grown. BOOORING.
This is embarrassing; Los Angeles is less car-dependent than Seattle and we cut Metro’s budget.
the king county fair is so fucking pathetic. I havent even been but it looks like something for children. exclusively.
This makes me more suspicious of the City’s budget. The State found itself in deeaper water. The County is hurting. Somehow, the City is getting by with a pain it can walk off.
Maybe the State and County are being too pessimistic and have done their math wrong. Then again maybe they did get it right and it is City that has strayed from the truth.
@12: Nope, it’s about right. A port, a pretty insular retail economy and low unemloyment make Seattle float a little better.
The city also put things on the backburner early in lucky coincidence– more light synchs, streetcar network, some sidewalk upgrades, all set aside.
Good grief, I love this city.
Well I certainly am going to sleep better knowing that the sacred cows and horses of King County are going to be better served in King County’s 2009 budget than homeless and sick humans.
not all county budget cuts are bad… trust me…. spending less money on criminal prosecution is by no means a bad thing… i work in the king county courts and there is massive government waste of tax dollars in our criminal courts… if the public knew how much money was spent prosecuting bogus dv cases, chippy shoplifting, and minor drug possessions… conservatives and liberals would flip the fuck out…
Sadly, they ended up restoring all the cuts to Sherrif’s Deputies – when the department should have taken 20 percent cuts like everyone else.
Instead, we increase their budget in good times and bad – and let them keep the money from drug busts, instead of using that money for drug addiction treatment.
I wonder how long it will be before King county makes Seattle take the unincorporated parts of the county between Roxbury and Burien.
And Skyway. That’s unincorporated also, isn’t it? You know they want to unload those neighborhoods.
Seattle has three funding sources as a city – property taxes, sales tax, and utility taxes. So they have one more source than counties do. So it is no small surprise that their budget would be more manageable than counties that have one less funding source (no utility tax). As for the district court, they have been cut to the bones and are becoming more and more efficient every day. The Superior Court is also working on becoming more efficient and has made many changes. The role of the court has changed from just sentencing people and putting them in jail to working with partners to try to change lives and help people get back on track. I agree with the person who said there are a lot of “Chippy” cases but there must be a place for those people to get help to make changes or they will continue in the patterns they have set. That is why this budget retained the drug, mental health and family courts. As for the DV Issue there was lots of money put in the budget for DAWN and several other domestic violence programs as well as the Sexual Assault program through outside providers besides the sheriff’s department. Metro’s budget was cut in the director’s office as well as some capitol but no hours for transportation were cut. The general fund is the main fund that is in trouble and that is unfortunately where the basic services of government are funded. It would be helpful to have citizens go through the budget and see what they would cut as it is not as easy as it might seem. One less Sheriff deputy? One less public health nurse to help people with TB? Close a health clinic? The last few years have been reductions and cuts in many categories. Now what is left is down to pretty much basics. So I bet the council would be interested in knowing where you would cut specifically as when the economic forecast comes in next, who knows they just might need your suggestions and it would make it clear just how difficult the choices are now……
The reason the county doesn’t have a utility tax is we Seattle citizens OWN the public water and electric companies.
And, we jack the price for excessive usage of water and electricity to non-Seattleites more, since – unlike those of us in Seattle, they don’t reduce usage when asked to by the city.
So, the hole they’re in … they dug it by not conserving when they needed to conserve.
Will, Seattle residents also have a high rate for excessive consumption of both electricity and water. The only thing different between the city and the suburbs, at least electrically speaking, is that the suburbs pay a slightly higher rate for everything.
As far as water goes, there’s a bunch of suburban water districts that buy water from Seattle and resell it to homes and businesses. I don’t know how they work.
@15 — There’s a helluva a lot more dead weight in the courts than in the prosecutor’s office and the public defender orgs combined. But I’m sure that the highly-skilled paper shuffling you do is really really important, Scott. Fucking jackass.
@18: Cities have four taxing sources, with the business and occupations tax being the fourth.
@19: Counties are not authorized to assess utility or B&O taxes under state law, Will. It has nothing to do with Seattle’s ownership of the water source.
@12: As for Seattle’s relatively robust fiscal health, you have to credit that go-go development booster mayor. All that new density and construction may not make you happy, but it does pay the bills.
@20 – not if you compare similar populations.
I did note the eventual drawdown for the vice squad, though, which is good.
“In the meantime, the Domestic Violence Unit of the King County Sheriff’s department has been cut in half.”
GREAT!!!! This totalitarian outfit has abused far too many innocent people. The way the DV laws up here are worded is insane. Anyone can accuse you of DV and there’s absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. I know a guy who was joking around with his wife early last December, and he tossed the pumpkin left over from Halloween down off the porch to the sidewalk where it smashed, and then he cleaned it up and threw it away. he and his wife were laughing and having fun about it all. A couple of days later, his wife was talking to her mom (busybody monster-in-law type), who lives IN YAKIMA, and the wife mentioned in passing how her husband smashed the pumpkin. The busybody monster-in-law decided that was DV (even though the wife was having fun and laughing about the pumpkin smash), and monster-in-law called the Seattle cops. My friend got arrested at work (he is an electrical engineer), which cost him his job. Since the DV authorities pay absolutely no attention to the “victim” and her testimony, they totally ignored my friend’s wife trying to tell them that all that happened was that her husband tossed a pumpkin down on the sidewalk and that they both were having fun and laughing about it. The Seattle DV zealots don’t care what the “victim” says. Long story short, my friend had to take a deal with the prosecutor which forces him to go to “DV Group Counseling” for an hour-and-a-half every week for the next two years (it costs $50 each time too), and he is on probation for two years, AND they imposed a “No-Contact Order” on him and his wife. Fuck Seattle and its TOTALITARIAN “liberal” DV laws and the radical scowling lesbians who got those laws pushed through.
I hope King County dies a slow and agonizing death
The reason we do not have a utility tax in rural incorporated King County, is because the county does not provide ANY services out here.
We have dirt roads, no garbage collection, hardly any police presence. If they put a tax on the utility bills, they will have to provide city level services.