Editorial

"Island County's budget rests precariously on the Washington State Legislature, which is now operating in overtime as our representatives make the painful decisions of where to cut the state budget. Various factions, such as state employees and teachers, are already yelping to high heavens, hoping to forestall any cuts in their departments.Joining the complainants are the Island County Commissioners, who based their county budget in part on the Legislature's promise to continue providing funds that disappeared when voters approved I-695, which slashed vehicle license tabs to $30. The Legislature provided the added funding in 2000, and signaled its intent to do the same in 2001.Since then, legislators such as Rep. Barry Sehlin, R-Oak Harbor, are rethinking the intent expressed in 2001. Counties saw the intent as an ironclad promise, while legislators this year are saying that their intentions were good, but times have changed --for the worse. Why should counties have priority over education and children's health care, asks Sehlin.Island County may come out of this fine, depending on how the Senate and House budgets are reconciled. If the county loses all of its I-695 replacement funding, it's looking at a $1.2 million deficit in what the commissioners call core services, such as criminal justice and public health.In retrospect, the Island County Commissioners may have made a poor bet when they made our core services dependent on a so-called promise from the Legislature. It's like balancing the family budget on the basis of some nag's anticipated performance at Emerald Downs. The Legislature has never been dependable, nor its actions easily predictable.The commissioners have gone easy on local property owners the last two years, raising taxes by 2 percent or less each year. That doesn't even keep up with inflation, as any business owner can attest. More reasonable increases, even in election years, may have helped protect our core services from an unfortunate fate in Olympia. "

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