OLYMPIA — If the state partially shuts down July 1, some services may be disrupted in both counties of the North Olympic Peninsula.
State officials sent notices last week to county administrators that county employees on state contracts could be impacted along with the more than 26,000 state employees who would be furloughed if a budget isn’t signed into law by midnight June 30.
That would result in various services — especially those related to health and human services — being temporarily discontinued in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
“They are just warning us, letting us know on our end,” said Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones.
The state budget includes funding for local governments.
“There are so many people that have a small slice of their salary that eventually comes from a state fund,” said Jim McEntire, Clallam County commissioner for District 1.
“Most of that is going to be in juvenile and health and human services. That is where the bulk of our state funds gets spent.”
In addition to Health and Human Services, Juvenile Services, District Court and Family Court receive the bulk of state funding received by the county, Jones noted.
“There are a lot of places in the county where we have employees that are grant-funded or contract-funded from the state,” he said.
“Assuming no budget is approved, we would not be able to continue doing those services past June 30, nor charging the state for any costs for those services.”
About 20 employees would be affected, Jones said.
Jefferson County faces a similar dilemma.
“The employees in Jefferson County most affected are in public health,” said David Sullivan, District 2 commissioner.
“They run on these state contracts” with some employees “being paid from several different contracts that are doing several different programs at the same time. That is what happens to small counties, small communities,” he said.
Counties brace
Failure by the state Legislature to pass a budget in the first few days of July could temporarily be absorbed by Jefferson County, Sullivan said.
“We are going to take it easy at first and not send out notices right away like the state is doing, but if they don’t get one done by . . . two weeks into July, we will have some layoff notices,” he said.
The number of Jefferson County employees that could potentially be furloughed has not been determined.
Clallam County is looking at dipping into contingency funding to continue operating the impacted services if state funding is cut off in July, McEntire said.
“I think, if there is a legal way to do it — and I am sure we can find a way to do this — we can take whatever steps we need to take as a commission to access our fund balances in those various funds and keep operations going as normal,” he said.
And Clallam County would seek recompense from the state if that were the case.
“We will do whatever we can to recoup that money,” McEntire said.
The three Clallam County commissioners will discuss their options concerning this matter during their regular work session at 9 a.m. Monday at the county courthouse.
Jefferson County is considering shuffling employees to other jobs funded by the county or federal government in order to prevent furloughs.
“Public health in Jefferson County has multiple funding streams,” said Jean Baldwin, director of Jefferson County Public Health, noting that employees in programs funded entirely by the state will be reassigned the first day of July to other projects should the shutdown begin.
“Can we transfer folks into other jobs if they have the rights skills? You betcha. We can’t do that indefinitely, but we can do it at least [for] a week and a half,” Baldwin said.
According to Philip Morley, Jefferson County administrator, the Jefferson County Public Works Department will take a similar approach, with the juvenile justice system currently taking stock of its options.
Any actions remain dependent upon the state Legislature.
“We are not going to make a firm decision on any kind of furloughs or changes until we get to June 30,” Baldwin said.
Waiting on the state to submit a budget every year has a chilling effect on growth, Sullivan said.
“The uncertainty really hurts planning efforts in every department. For the whole county, we end up waiting every year . . . to see what they are going to do. If we knew . . . we could do some real planning, and we could bond that money and do some good things.”
And Jefferson County is “still trying to recover from the recession,” Sullivan continued.
“We cut about 10 percent of our staff at that time, and we really haven’t had it back. We are just maintaining. And we are doing OK, but it really hurts not knowing year to year what some of these funding streams are going to be,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
