(The Center Square) – Thurston County Assessor Steven Drew says his office is in a “dire situation” based on last week’s warning from the Board of County Commissioners asking departments to find ways to cut about 26% of spending in their general fund allocations.
Thurston County has a projected 2026 general deficit of $36 million. The county is implementing cost-cutting measures across all departments to address the widening budget gap.
Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders said he was blindsided by the bleak budget picture revealed during last week’s all-day meeting at the county’s administrative headquarters in Olympia.
“It kind of just came out of nowhere,” Sanders told The Center Square on Wednesday.
Sanders told county commissioners that if his department is forced to make 26% cuts, he thinks the recently implemented public safety tax should be lifted.
Thurston County voters approved a 0.2% sales and use tax increase in late 2023 to fund public safety and criminal justice needs. The tax took effect in April 2024.
“I just hired all these people. So, when you come back to me and tell me that it’s time to do a 26% cut exercise, it’s alarming for people who made a very explicit decision to come to work for the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office,” Sander said. “I mean, you should have told me back in February to stop hiring people. I think that’s where a lot of us are confused with this.”
Drew told The Center Square that his department already operates on a shoestring budget.
“We’re barely able to get our work done now with the level of funding that we have,” he said. “To propose a 26% cut is very destructive.”
The assessor noted his office is already behind on 2025 required assessment reports due to understaffing and legislatively required reporting duties that they don’t have the staff or current technology systems to keep up with. He shared that promised technology upgrades have been delayed for several years.
“I took an oath to make tough decisions in tough times,” Drew said, going into some detail about what a 26% cut could look like. “We will close the office to the public. We will not answer phone calls. Voicemail will forward people to email. Emails will be issued a ticket number, and they’ll be in a queue. The number in the queue will be posted on our website on a regular basis so that folks can see where they are in the queue. Totally unacceptable method, but it is what we will have to do.”
Sanders said that when it comes to budget issues, county officials always consider public safety because of its impact on the bottom line.
“Criminal justice makes up 70% of our budget,” he explained. “It’s the most expensive and most expansive.”
He noted that public safety goes beyond his department.
“In the Coroner’s Office, I mean, do you not want the bodies to get picked up from the middle of the road? Do you want us to leave them there? Those are the questions that the county commissioners are left with trying to answer, right?” Sanders asked. “The thing that people have to understand is that essential services are at the brink, and they always have been here in the county.”
Both Sanders and Drew told The Center Square they sympathize with voters who are feeling overtaxed based on legislative priorities, which translate into local tax proposals being rejected.
“There are a lot of counties [that] really did need to raise local funds,” Sanders said. “They needed to raise some sort of local levy to cover costs. And when the state comes through and just arbitrarily raises nine billion in new taxes, you can pretty much assume that that’s not going to happen. Your property tax levy, your sales tax levy, those are probably all failing at that point in time.”
The Center Square emailed the Board of County Commissioners for comment about the budget situation.
“The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners is working to balance the budget by aligning expenses with revenue. No final decisions about budget reductions have been made, and the Board was able to reduce the deficit by almost $18 million in a session yesterday [TUES]. We will continue to keep the community updated through public meetings and the Balancing the Budget | Thurston County page on our website,” Susan Melnyk, Chief Communications Manager for Thurston County, said in an email.
Sanders indicated that no decisions will be finalized for the budget before December, but he said he would provide a “counter” proposal for consideration in the interim.
