EVERETT — The worsening economy appears to have punched a $6.7 million hole in Snohomish County’s budget.
The new estimates, released by the executive’s office Tuesday, show the steepest decline for sales tax. That alone accounts for a $4.5 million drop in projected revenue.
The news comes as Executive Aaron Reardon has been meeting privately with elected officials countywide to discuss the county’s worsening financial health.
“It’s important to put into perspective what is happening with the economy and how the national recession is affecting us locally,” Reardon said. “We are going to have to manage the situation. Again, that’s not a surprise to anyone.”
The response is likely to involve further service cuts and layoffs.
The executive held a two-hour meeting with elected department heads on Tuesday to give them an overview of the economy and its impact on the county. Officials such as the sheriff, the treasurer and the auditor attended. At a similar meeting today, they expect to go over more of the specific numbers and how to respond.
The executive is scheduled to meet privately with individual county councilmen on Friday, ahead of a public presentation on Tuesday. He also plans to share the news with county employees at a brown-bag lunch on Friday.
Some on the County Council said they have been needlessly kept in the dark. They weren’t invited to this week’s meetings with the other elected officials.
Council Chairman Mike Cooper wondered why the executive’s office was taking so long and said he was worried about delaying the county’s response, since the council has final say on the budget.
“(Reardon) knows that that information was available and it’s beginning to look a little like playing politics with people’s jobs,” Cooper said. “I’m very concerned. Our county is in crisis and we have to deal with it.”
Reardon called Cooper’s reaction “grandstanding.”
“To say they haven’t heard from me and my office is just not true,” he said. The revenue estimate report wasn’t ready to send to the County Council until Tuesday afternoon, he said.
The county has already shed 160 positions to overcome a $21 million budget shortfall when passing the 2009 budget last fall. The latest forecast would mean losing another 3 percent from the $206 million general fund.
In addition to the hit on sales taxes, the county is likely to take in $1 million less because it can’t earn as much interest on investments. Early figures from this year also led analysts to conclude that they would not receive $425,000 from state timber sales.
The county planning department, which is not funded through the general fund budget, also faces problems because it isn’t issuing as many housing permits as estimated in the budget. It’s expected to permit 1,121 houses this year, instead of the 2,049 originally projected. If that’s on target, it would spell a 39 percent drop in revenue, to $7.9 million from $13 million.
Some elected officials who attended Tuesday’s meeting with the county executive described it as a productive overview.
Auditor Carolyn Weikel said nobody expected the news to be good, and it wasn’t.
Among other topics, the meeting dealt with general solutions such as shortening workweeks and having employees take unpaid days off.
“We’re all trying to figure out how we’re going to tackle this situation we’re in,” she said. “It will take a lot of hard work and creative ideas as we go forward.”
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