Island County officials are hoping workers will agree to cut back on their hours so the sting won’t be so severe on the next round of layoffs.

County commissioners met with department heads and line employees last week to share details on the $1 million budget deficit facing the county. The new hole in the budget — blamed mostly on the drop in investment earnings — follows a $2 million budget gap late last year that was bridged with job cuts. Commissioners began their search for solutions last week by asking county employees for ideas, and this week, held a public forum in Oak Harbor that centered largely on the county’s shrinking budget.

County Commissioner John Dean said one idea making the rounds is for employees to cut their own hours back so, cumulatively, they could save the jobs of their coworkers.

It’s proving to be a popular idea beyond Island County. State and local governments across the Northwest, and the country, have been looking at unpaid furloughs as they grapple with declining revenues amid a nationwide recession.

Last week, a group of 60 Kitsap County employees volunteered to give up 8,000 hours, a move that was expected to save $250,000. And earlier in February, more than 50 employees in Snohomish County agreed to take 10 days off without pay.

Talk at the county campus in Coupeville has turned to furloughs, as well, Dean told The Record after the recent round of employee meetings.

“I think the best thing that I’m hearing is an interest in everybody taking some kind of reduction,” Dean said.

Workers are looking for ways to preserve jobs, even with reduced hours, rather than having departments compete against each other for a shrinking piece of the revenue pie.

It’s an encouraging sign, Dean said, and reminiscent of the way employees donate their sick leave to coworkers who need it more. He said he planned to meet with Budget Director Elaine Marlow about the idea of a focused pay reduction.

“My next step is to get with Elaine and figure out how many hours would we all have to chip in,” he said. “I don’t know what it would be to make up a million bucks.”

It’s certainly not a done deal, Dean added.

“The possibility of either a furlough or a reduction in hours,

I don’t know if that’s going to gain traction. There’s certainly some union issues that I have not even begun to look at,” Dean said.

“Personally, I like the philosophy of everybody taking a small hit so that nobody gets their job taken out from under them,” he added.

County commissioners eliminated 31 positions in December to bridge a $2 million gap in the 2009 budget, a spending plan that totaled $67.7 million. The cuts included unfilled positions, and a total of

18 workers actually lost jobs. Eleven of those employees were full-time workers, while seven were part-time.

Commissioners agreed last week to cut public hours for four county offices in the Courthouse Administration Building in Coupeville, starting in March. While the reduction is not expected to save money, it will give employees in the human resources office, and the offices for county treasurer, county assessor and county auditor more time to catch up on work without interruption from the public.

County officials have said residents should expect additional cuts in services in the months ahead. Commissioners have also said a hiring freeze is not feasible, and that some unfilled jobs that are critical for county operations will be filled in the future.

At the recent meeting with county employees, commissioners were asked if they thought part of the county’s current budget troubles stemmed from commissioners’ historical reluctance to raise taxes.

In a later interview, Dean said no.

“They just didn’t foresee a crisis coming down the pike, at the extent that we’re in,” Dean said. “I was totally supportive of being frugal.”

“We’ve gone past frugal and into crisis,” he added. “I think this is a crisis of national proportions that nobody really understood to the extent that it would hit us.”

Dean said the budget cuts late last year were built on layoffs. The next round will be different.

“We looked pretty much solely at reduction of staff, mostly because we didn’t get a lot of support for anything else. This time around, everything’s back on the table,” he said.

“This is pretty darn serious, to have to turn around just after a series of layoffs, to turn around and do some more,” Dean said.

“This is really difficult,” added Commissioner Helen Price Johnson.

“There’s going to be some extremely difficult choices about what we choose not to do for the citizens. At this funding level, we can’t continue to provide all the services that we do in the way that we have all become accustomed to,” she said.

“How that is going to play out, I can’t tell you,” Price Johnson said. “I do know we’re going to look different than when we started.”

“This isn’t just, we’ll hold our breath and we’ll get through it and we will be OK,” she said. “We are going to undergo some transformational change.”

Price Johnson said county officials will need to closely examine how essential services are funded. The county has relied heavily on the housing industry in the past, with tax revenues from new construction helping bolster the budget.

“That’s a value question that we as a community need to grapple with; is that the funding model were comfortable with?” Price Johnson asked.

“This crisis brings that to light in a way that nothing else could have,” she said.