PORT ANGELES – Clallam County officials will be punching new holes into their belts to slim down by $1 million for 2008.
County Administrator Jim Jones delivered next year’s preliminary budget to county commissioners on Tuesday, echoing pessimistic predictions he’d made a year ago.
“I do not believe there’s fat in county government anymore, and we no longer can trim costs without cutting services,” Jones said later.
He’ll ask the county’s appointed and elected department heads to identify programs and projects they can cut to make up the shortfall.
If they don’t cut spending sufficiently, he’ll offer several options – not necessarily his own suggestions – to balance the budget.
One choice, Jones said, would shrink the county work week to four nine-hour days, cutting wage earners from 37.5 to 36 hours a week and slashing 40-hour-a-week managers by 10 percent.
“We will lose some good, good people,” he said, “who will look at their hole cards and say, ‘I can’t stay here anymore.'”
In an interview with Peninsula Daily News that followed Tuesday’s meeting, Jones said he foresaw lean revenues through 2010. That’s when:
