County Council Adopts 2013 King County Budget, Includes $1.3 Million Bump for Health and Human Services

The Metropolitan King County Council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a $7.6 billion King County Budget for 2013 that continues to meet the needs of county residents while making strategic investments for King County’s future, according to a news release from the county.

AAA Credit Rating

“This budget emphasizes responsible fiscal management that maintains our credit rating at the highest AAA level, which gives us the best credit rating,” said Councilmember Kathy Lambert, vice chair of the Budget Leadership Team. “A high credit rating saves the taxpayers millions of dollars in interest annually.” Lambert represents a portion of Woodinville.

Public Safety and Criminal Justice Funding

The budget includes the $685 million General Fund Budget, of which 73 percent supports public safety and criminal justice costs.

“Ensuring the integrity of our justice system was one of my top budget priorities for this budget, so I am pleased we were able to preserve funding for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and expand support for countywide civil legal aid programs,” said Councilmember Bob Ferguson, who represents a portion of Woodinville. 

Health and Human Services Funding

The health and human services safety net received a one-time allocation of $1.3 million to support domestic violence shelters, legal aid, services for sexual assault survivors and housing services. Among agencies supported in the budget are Eastside Baby Corner, Eastside Legal Assistance and Hopelink.

“Having a safety net of services to refer people to also helps people stabilize their lives,” said Lambert, who also serves as chair of the Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee. “We were able to maintain funding for the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program that benefits children and families caught up in the legal system, using trained volunteers to represent the best interests of a child in custody cases. Funding for an additional staff position will allow coordination of CASA volunteers to work for the best outcomes for kids.

Local Funding for Unincorporated Areas (Road Funds Decline Partially Due to Annexation)

“Another priority is maintaining funding for local government service,” Councilmember Lambert added. “Those living in unincorporated rural areas depend on King County for local government programs. Among the rural programs we were able to maintain were full funding for our agricultural services and agricultural ditch drainage program.”

One important concern remaining is the declining revenues in the unincorporated area road fund. This fund has problems for several reasons, for instance, the number of people paying into this fund has been reduced by nearly one-third due to annexations of some areas into cities. These annexations move the taxes into cities, while more than 90 percent of the roads remain in the county’s unincorporated area. This funding problem needs to be fixed in Olympia. In addition to fewer people paying into the road fund, the lower assessed value of many homes means less money for roads, also.

Because of these funding problems, the level of services that can be provided will fall further behind community needs. The budget identifies efficiencies and strategic plans to improve productivity with the existing funding. Additionally, Councilmember Lambert said in a news release that she fought to make sure that snow removal and winter storm response activities were funded as much as possible.

“Our transportation challenges are going to require comprehensive solutions and partnering with the state as we continue to have unmet maintenance needs for our rural roads,” she said. “This budget responds to what can be accomplished with less available revenue by continuing to prioritize the highest needs. Meanwhile, we will continue to work with the Legislature on developing sustainable funding options.”

Budgeting Process

Lambert praised the budget deliberation process, which involved hearing testimony from hundreds of citizens at committee and town hall meetings as well as collaboration with the Executive’s budget office and through e-mails.

“I appreciate the willingness of my colleagues to work in a collaborative manner on the process of negotiating, investigating, and analyzing revenues and expenses, which is what our citizens want us to do,” she said. “Together, we explored new options for generating savings such as merging county departments to minimize administrative staffing to looking at systems and greater efficiencies.”

Find more budget details here.

--Information from King County and Councilor Kathy Lambert. 

What do you think should be done about the decline in road funding in unincorporated areas? Should annexations be stopped for this reason alone? Tell us in comments.