| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010 12:15 am |
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Local News 
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Snohomish County budget passes, with a caveat County councilmen say if the economy worsens, more cuts may be needed. EVERETT — Snohomish County could make it through 2010 with fewer employee furlough days, no large tax increases and no big changes to services under a proposed budget the County Council passed Monday.Council Chairman Mike Cooper hailed it as a balanced budget for grim economic times that treats both taxpayers and county employees fairly. “This budget required tough decisions,” Cooper said. Cooper and other councilmen cautioned that more cuts could loom in the 2011 budget if the economy gets worse.* The council's general fund includes about $202.7 million. It gave almost all of the county's 2,700 employees five furlough days, instead of the 15 that County Executive Aaron Reardon had proposed earlier in his budget. That amounts to about a 1.9 percent pay cut under the council version, instead of roughly 5.7 percent cut under the executive's version. Most employees had to take off 10 unpaid days this year. The council's budget restored more than $300,000 in funding for Washington State University Extension agricultural programs — a third of the total — that Cooper suggested cutting. As a trade-off, the proposed budget took away from the county's reserves for emergency situations, which are millions of dollars lower than recommended levels. The budget passed 4-1, with all of the Democrats supporting it and only Republican John Koster opposing it. Koster wanted the budget to include cuts in property tax rates and in nonessential county services. Reardon now will likely have until early December to make a decision about whether to sign or veto it. He didn't say which direction he was leaning on Monday, but voiced strong concerns. “It's the local-government version of an adjustable-rate mortgage: small payments now with a big balloon payment next year,” Reardon said. “Unfortunately, that means that the county's not out to the soup.” Reardon said the budget was full of one-time-fixes that just delay the pain until next year — if not sooner. He likened it to the budget Washington's Legislature passed last year; that budget now has to be slashed by another $2.6 billion. Koster said the council's budget should have lowered the property-tax rates to correspond to negative inflation. Instead of lowering it to just over 99 percent, the county kept it at 100 percent. “It's going above the what the legal limit is,” he said. Koster said he had a hard time justifying any increases when the budget includes about $1 million of nonessential services, including the WSU Extension programs that he, like Cooper, voted to cut. Not making hard decisions now could mean coming back next year to ask for more furlough days, Koster said. Cooper disagreed that the budget raised taxes in any significant amount. Money for conservation futures would go up about $32,000 countywide, which he said would amount to just pennies for the average taxpayer. A budget amendment proposed Monday would have raised property taxes by $2.1 million countywide. It failed, with Cooper and Sullivan the only supporters. The council did impose a new $5 per parcel fee, plus five cents per acre, on property to fund the Snohomish Conservation District.** Also on Monday, the council committed to: Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com. *Correction, Nov. 24, 2009: This article originally incorrectly stated when potential budget cuts could take place. **Correction, Nov. 24, 2009: This article originally incorrectly described fees to fund the Snohomish Conservation District. |
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(23) - 16-year-old girl convicted in Sultan gang murder (13)
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- Government officials influencing home prices
- Massive EPA energy regulations meet challenge
- Washington state healthcare reforms also needed
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COMMENTS
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# Ordering the planning department to develop, by June, a way to cope with reduced revenue from sluggish development and the annexations of county areas into nearby cities.
That is easy look at your permit Deptartment.. A limit of so many days to get a permit out.. When permits are issued, construction begins and soon finishes Thus starts a whole new amount of taxes on that parcel.
At least that is how it used to work
Now I hear its at least 4 months and people are still wondering where the permit is.
max Mckenzie | Nov 24, 2009 10:41 am | 0 replies | Request removal
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One thing I can't stand with the whole budget issue is that neither Democrats nor Republicans are addressing the issue of priorities in public funding. Some things need to be cut, other things must stay. Why are we willing to cut funding for education, insurance for the poor, welfare, and gov't jobs, yet we don't talk about cutting wasteful prison spending, pay for the highest-ranking officials, and rich county campuses and nice police cars? Basic necessities MUST come before luxuries. The most well-paid officials should be the first to take pay cuts and should take huge pay cuts, while the least-paid gov't workers should only take small pay cuts. We need to stop imprisoning people for small crimes. Raise taxes on the rich, keep them low for the poor. Yet there's this still this stubborn traditionalist viewpoint held by both Democrats and Republicans that luxuries and the interests of the rich and famous come before basic necessities and the rights of the neediest. I'm sick of it, maybe it's time for a Marxist in government.
Johnny Doey | Nov 24, 2009 1:36 am | 1 replies | Request removal
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Basically, Aaron Reardon should take a greater pay cut than the lowest paid county workers. Mark Emmert, UW president, should take a steep pay cut before talking about raising tuition on students. Preserving services to disabled and low-income citizens comes before beautifying gov't campuses and cracking down on bikini barristas. But WA Republicans don't care about the needy, only their drug-busting sex-offender busting goals for society, and WA Democrats are not true leftists, putting the interests of their high-ranking friends before the people that need services the most. It's the 21st century, every gov't official must keep the basic necessities of society's neediest at the forefront in every decision they make.
Johnny Doey | Nov 24, 2009 1:53 am | Request removal