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King County
Executive Office
Ron Sims, King County Executive 701 Fifth Ave. Suite 3210 Seattle, WA 98104 Phone: 206-296-4040 Fax: 206-296-0194 TTY Relay: 711
Image: King County Exeutive Ron Sims, News Release

Oct. 15, 2007

Executive Sims 2008 budget speech

SpeechMr. Chair, Honored members of the Council, Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, Assessor Scott Noble, Sheriff Sue Rahr, Presiding Judge Trickey, Presiding Judge Linde, Renton Mayor Kathy Keolker, Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, Tukwila Mayor Steve Mullet, Greater Maple Valley Unincorporated Area Council President Dick Bonewits, Ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for being here. And I especially want to thank the thousands of men and women who could not be in these chambers, the exceptional employees of King County. They are the living embodiment of this budget and it is their dedication and commitment to public service every day that keeps King County the innovative, world class leader that is it. Thank you. It is an honor and privilege to be your executive.

And I am honored to come before you to present my proposed budget for 2008.

 

2007 Achievements

But before I do, allow me to mention some of our important accomplishments.

We continue to be a vanguard in the fight against climate change. We announced an agreement to purchase up to 500 hybrid buses – at the time the largest investment of its kind, as King County continues to pioneer clean vehicle technologies. We co-wrote and released a groundbreaking guidebook on how local governments can prepare for global warming.

Led by Councilmembers Constantine, Ferguson, King County launched the national "Cool Counties" initiative to bring counties together to fight climate change. We recently hosted one of the nation's largest clean vehicle conferences, which ignited a commitment from leading King County cities to help develop a "Green Fleet Standard" that could become a national model. Twenty cities, led by Mercer Island and Kirkland, made this commitment.

And while we fought climate change, we also fought for our most vulnerable residents, providing continued leadership on public health, housing the homeless, and striving to cover every child in King County with health insurance.

Indeed, these are challenging times. But here in King County, we are fortunate to be anchored by two extraordinary human beings who, through their ideals, guide us through our challenges.

The first is King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng. His death was as tragic as it was sudden.

For all my years serving King County and its citizens, I took comfort knowing Norm was here. He embodied a certain courage, wisdom, and an abiding humanity – that should guide us even now. Norm was our beacon of justice – whether championing the cause of victims of domestic violence or putting the most dangerous criminals among us away for life. It is fitting that Norm Maleng's name will forever grace our Regional Justice Center in Kent.

And Norm was proudly there with us earlier this year when we took the monumental step to adopt a likeness of the second extraordinary man, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as the logo for King County. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, lead by my dear friend, Chair Gossett and others, in 2007 we became the only government to embrace Dr. King's image as its official symbol.

There is no more widely recognized and enduring icon of equality, justice and peace than Dr. King. Like Dr. King, Norm Maleng never lost sight of what was right, moral and just. Let us apply those shared values – of what's right, moral and just – to all we do in King County.

Let us honor our departed friend, Norm Maleng, not with mournful silence but with a resounding celebration of his life.

Yes, this has been a year of change. But the striking image of Dr. King as the very symbol of King County reminds us that as agents of change, we also have certain responsibilities. Dr. King demonstrated that we have the power to turn fear into HOPE, apathy into ACTION, and that TOGETHER we can and must make a difference in the lives of all the residents of King County.

I want to talk to the Council today about the collective action we have taken together, and about the final actions that we still must take.

And in this county named for Dr. King, we must demonstrate the courage to do the just, the right and moral thing. Dr, King once said, "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

This 2008 budget is the result of the "passionate concerns" of every member of this Council. It is the culmination of some "remarkable exertions", often years in the making, demonstrating bipartisan leadership and vision by the legislative branch of King County. For the first time that I can remember, nearly every major initiative included in my Executive proposed budget has either strong Council support or was at the direction of the Council.

That leadership has brought us to the brink of some incredible human progress. But as Dr. King warned, that progress is not inevitable. I ask that this Council remain steadfast, confidant and pass the initiatives you have helped create. So that together – just as Dr. King did –we can invest today for a bright tomorrow.

So I am pleased today to transmit our 2008 budget. It is a 4.8 billion dollar budget representing challenges, opportunities and a call for action from the Courthouse to the State House.

GMA and Annexation Tools

We need that action as we face a fundamental challenge that threatens our very ability to deliver innovative, effective and efficient services to the residents of King County. We must find a way to annex the urban areas of King County to cities. I offer these remarks not only to my colleagues in this chamber, but also to our colleagues and friends in Olympia. It is a time for action by the Governor, the Senate and the State House, not simply this Courthouse.

While cities have annexed our sales tax rich areas, King County and other counties are left providing increasingly expensive regional services – criminal justice such as courts and jails, human service and public health. Today, more than 70 per cent of King County's current expense budget goes for criminal justice.

But the limited revenues King County has cannot keep pace with these regional costs. So each year, the gap grows and it is our citizens who fall behind.

We've been working hard for the past several years to complete the remaining annexations. Except for the brave example of Auburn, they haven't happened. And so today the second largest city in the state of Washington remains urban unincorporated King County. But we do not have the financial tools that a city does to serve it.

In every budget speech in the last 3 years I have called out the need for annexation to help solve King County's financial dilemma. The gap between what urban areas generate in taxes and what they consume in services is roughly the same as the 25 million dollar CX deficit we will face in 2009.

This cannot go on.

Today, I ask members of the County Council, the Courts, the Sheriff, the Prosecutor, Assessor and others to join me in asking the Legislature to resolve this once and for all. Give us the tools so we can continue to provide vital regional services while embracing the land use policies of the Growth Management Act.

King County can no longer shoulder this growing burden without some help from Olympia.

And Olympia has created a path to help. We are grateful that the state has recognized counties are struggling. They authorized the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to study the financial health of counties and make recommendations to the legislature on December 1 st. We ask that the Governor and legislature take the results and act swiftly to help us fix our broken county system.

But until that time, my proposed 2008 budget is balanced with the tools we have. We are using those tools wisely.

This is a prudent and responsible budget, but I must tell you it wasn't easy getting here. When budget staff presented me the first run of numbers, we showed a deficit in 2009 of over 40 million dollars.

I told them we had to do better – so in September we went back to the drawing board. We asked Executive departments to curb spending and innovate. We eliminated many creative initiatives as simply too expensive for today. And, yes, we are asking for new revenues to ensure taxpayers continue to receive world-class service from King County.

Why did we do this? Because we are again in uncertain economic times. The credit crunch is rippling through the national housing market. We cannot – and must not – think we are immune. While our renewed focus has balanced 2008 and brought down the projected 2009 deficit to 25 million I must remind the Council that every dollar they add to this budget will only increase that deficit in 2009.

 

AAA Bond Ratings

So we must proceed with caution. This is a budget strong on fiscal discipline, and lean on new, discretionary CX initiatives. As we have every year since I became your County Executive, we are doing all we can to protect our top bond ratings, the truest objective measure of a county's financial health and discipline.

We owe the taxpayers of King County that discipline with their dollar, and I am pleased to report that less than two weeks ago, the nation's leading bond rating agencies have again affirmed King County's Triple-A bond rating for the third year in a row. One agency wrote that King County had – and I quote – "demonstrated capacity for excellent financial management through a spectrum of economic cycles" – unquote.

I would like to congratulate our budget and finance staff, Budget Chairs Ferguson and Constantine, the King County Council and all our branches of county government in helping meet this financial test while providing world-class service to the people of King County.

So this 2008 budget sticks to this fiscal restraint while meeting our unwavering commitment to protecting the people, property and economy of this great region.

 

Public Safety

Our foremost duty is protecting the public. For King County, that protection includes safety from crime on our streets, flooding that threatens our homes and economy, and wider concerns like diseases that threaten public health.

It was less than a year ago that King County Sheriff's Deputy Steve Cox was shot and killed in White Center while questioning a suspect with gang-related ties. Gang related crime is up: from 199 incidents in 2005, to 528 incidents in 2006, and every indication of more in 2007.

This Council and I agree that criminal gangs will not be tolerated in this county. As first proposed by Councilmembers Constantine and Patterson, and at the behest of a unanimous King County Council, I have reinstated the Gang Unit and funded three dedicated officers to work on gang-related crime.

We are also adding more officers to our buses for increased safety and security. Sound Transit will pay for a new Captain and four deputies to monitor their operations. For Metro Transit, I am proposing we add 11 officers to improve policing in downtown Seattle, as well as South King County.

Public safety extends to our corrections officers. For the past several years, with an increase in the jail population, a troubling and expensive increase in mandatory overtime has affected our officers who maintain safe, secure, humane and orderly detention facilities. I am so proud of the dedicated men and women who vigilantly guard those who must be behind bars. They work tirelessly to protect us every day. But even the tireless get tired working 12-16 hours in a row. These brave public servants need our help. And so, after a detailed analysis, we determined the appropriate blend of staffing and overtime. And therefore I am proposing adding 32 new full-time corrections officers for county detention facilities.

 

 

Flood Control

Protecting the public in a county such as ours takes many forms. King County has an aging levee system protecting thousands of people and billions in property, regional infrastructure and commerce.

We have already identified $335 million in critical flood protection needs in our Flood Hazard Management Plan. But last winter, record flooding did more than $33 million in new damages to our levees. Some cracked. Others failed. Homes, schools, farms and businesses were flooded or washed away.

Some contend this is not a regional issue. I would focus their attention on the Cedar River in Renton, where a small levee-protected bridge is threatened every winter by flooding. The span itself is rather modest compared to its impact on our regional economy. Last year, 302 Boeing 737's rolled across that bridge on the way to customers – representing over 20 billion dollars in sales. I ask what is more regional that ensuring the Boeing company's ability to achieve such success?

We saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina what happens when the levees break. People die. Neighborhoods are washed out. The local economy is ravaged.

We cannot let that happen in King County. This Council has had the courage and the foresight to create a countywide flood control zone district. Under the leadership of Councilmember's Patterson and Dunn, and of Councilmembers Phillips and von Reichbauer you have repeatedly done the right thing for the past two years, taking three separate legislative actions to end the threat of catastrophic floods in King County.

I also want to acknowledge jurisdictions who served on the Advisory Committee to the Flood District, who helped shape the plan for our region. Thank you to Mayor Mullet, Mayor Larson, Mayor Keolker and President Bonewits for your extensive work on flood management issues.

I ask you to hold to that conviction and take the final action necessary to protect us all. Today, I am proposing to invest more than 350 million over the next decade to strengthen and maintain more than 500 flood control facilities across King County.

Let us not wait until the water is rising and the levees break. Let us take the lessons of New Orleans to heart, and act now.

 

Ferry District

Just as floodwaters threaten us, the waters of Puget Sound and Lake Washington afford us a unique regional opportunity.

Since 1997, every summer King County has operated a wildly popular water taxi from West Seattle to downtown. Based on this success, the state legislature asked us for help running passenger ferries in this region. As we do so often, King County accepted the challenge. Led by Councilmember's Hague and Constantine, earlier this year, the Council unanimously created King County's first-ever passenger ferry district using the tools granted to us by the state. This bold and decisive action has in turn resulted in millions of federal dollars for ferryboats from Senator Patty Murray and Representative Norm Dicks.

Soon I will be transmitting to you a draft plan to complete that commitment, and to make waterborne transportation an everyday, year-round reality.

Imagine not only a West Seattle run, but also passenger ferry routes from Vashon Island to downtown, linkages between Burien, Normandy Park and Federal Way, and with waterborne connections across Lake Washington to Bellevue, Kirkland and Kenmore. As we cope with congested roads and developing comprehensive transit options to ease climate change, a network of small, fast, reliable ferries is a "back to the future" addition to our transportation toolbox.

The new ferry district is the next step in King County's journey to operate the cleanest, greenest, most comprehensive transportation agency in the nation, and I urge the Council to now fund it.

 

Transit Fares

Last year, voters approved the Transit Now initiative to expand service by 20 percent over the next 10 years. We're well on our way.

In the next two years, my proposed budget adds 179,000 hours of new bus service throughout King County. This includes 88,000 new Transit Now hours invested in our core system and to increase service in the fast growing parts of Eastern and South King County.

Under the proposed budget, we would continue efforts aimed at doubling vanpool usage by 2016, and improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

This all comes when growth in Metro Transit ridership has been among the fastest in the nation. And with gasoline hovering around $3-a-gallon, congested roads, and wide spread concern about climate change, we expect transit ridership to continue to expand at a brisk pace.

The challenge today is that Metro Transit's costs are increasing at an even faster pace. Since 2001, we have not raised Metro's fares. Over that same time, operating costs have increased 37 percent, and the price of diesel fuel has risen from 75 cents to 2 dollars and 15 cents per gallon. These financial pressures threaten our overall service quality.

To keep Metro Transit the best in the nation, it is time for a modest transit fare increase, the first in 7 years. I am asking for 25 cents to raise over $19 million in additional revenues over the biennium. This investment will maintain the award winning reliability, dependability and predictability of our transit system.

As always the thoughtful, generous voters of King County lead the elected officials in protecting the quality of life in King County. The voters approved Transit Now and this August they also overwhelmingly passed two parks levies to protect and expand our precious open space, parks and regional trail networks. This budget invests the first 32 million dollars from those levies to improve our environment, recreation, water quality, economy and health.

 

Mental Health and Children's Health

I'd like to shift now from transportation and parks, to other critical issues that affect our quality of life in King County.

The most far reaching of these is mental health and chemical dependency. Mental illness affects one in five families in America. 74 percent of Americans report that addiction to alcohol or drugs has had a direct impact on their lives. Mental illness and substance abuse can be treated and those who suffer can achieve recovery, healthier lives and productive futures.

But we need to do something, now, about those who cannot get treatment. Of the 433,000 low-income residents in King County, 44,000 suffer from some form of addiction, and 65,000 have a serious mental illness. Failing to solve this problem is overwhelming our streets, our jails and our health care system.

This Council understands that, and has led on this issue with compassion and wisdom. You have received the recommendations from the Health Families and Communities Task Force, which included in its report support for the approval of funding to address mental health and substance abuse services.

Thank you to Mayor Keolker and Chair Gossett who co-chaired this task force, along with the other leaders from the religious, business, human services, and local government sectors. Following the vision of Councilmembers Ferguson and Lambert, on July 24 of 2006, this Council passed Motion 12320 by a 9-0 vote, unanimously calling for a three-phase action plan to address mental illness and chemical dependency in King County.

Your leadership was proven again just last week when you adopted Motion 12598, unanimously approving the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan. I am proposing that we follow the actions of Clallam County, Clark County, Island County, Jefferson County, Okanogan County, Skagit County, and Spokane County. And so today I am calling upon the Council to take the final step and enact the one tenth of a cent sales tax to fund the much needed programs and services in the Action Plan you just adopted with an 8-0 vote.

My 2008 budget and 2009 deficit forecast assumes the one tenth is adopted. It utilizes the revenues raised in countless ways to make lives better. If the Council does not pass it, the financial impact to the budget will be severe.

And so the one tenth is a tool we must use because we cannot end homelessness unless we treat mental illness. Nearly half of the homeless people in King County suffer some form of mental illness or chemical dependency. We see those who suffer everywhere and on intersections in every community. They suffer from the harsh elements, from hunger and become targets for street crime and violence and often die on our streets alone.

Untreated mental illness and chemical dependency overwhelm our emergency rooms and fill our jails at astronomical cost. We cannot call ourselves a compassionate and caring society if we refuse to do what we can to address this crying need. I support using the state authority which will give people the treatment services they need to achieve recovery and break the expensive cycle of jails and hospital emergency rooms.

These funds will help us reach and treat troubled youth in their homes and schools and provide the crisis and treatment services that will reduce mental illness and addiction later in life. This is a morally and financially sound investment for us all.

From the shadows of society, I want us to step up to help those just entering our society – our children. I watched recent actions in Washington, DC on children's health with a mix of disgust and determination. Our national leaders have let the health of our children – our most precious resource – become yet another pawn in an ongoing political battle.

But while they fight OVER our children, we in King County have won victories FOR our children. Championed by Council Chair Gossett and with Councilmembers Hague and Patterson, together we launched the King County Children's Health Initiative to provide our children with quality health and dental care. And it is working. We are on track for enrolling more than 1,000 children into public health insurance programs by the end of 2007.

In 2008, I am again setting aside one million dollars to fund the Children's Health Initiative with the goal of providing another 1,000 children with health care. Once again, King County can be the model for the nation, thanks to the bold commitment and partnership of organizations like Group Health Cooperative, Washington Dental Service, Community Health Plan, Molina Health Plan, community health clinics, the Washington State Hospital Association, and hospitals in King County.

But as important as these investments in flood control, transportation, public safety, in mental health, chemical dependency and children are for 2008, we must not forget 2009. What has emerged from this budget process is as tough as it is creative and dynamic. Across the Executive branch we took a two year approach to addressing future deficits.

In 2009 we will for the first time fully unite our business plans with our budget process. Departments will set priorities based on proven outcomes and effectiveness. We will fund redefined core programs and actions that work and we will eliminate those that do not.

And we must not rest in our efforts by believing if we take these budgetary actions, we have solved our greatest inequities.

It is with a hopeful heart for the future that I conclude my budget speech by talking about something that is not yet in my budget.

We have great wealth compared with much of the world, and this country was founded on principles of justice and equality for all. These are values inherent in the marvelous people who live in King County.

Yet, despite the fact that we as a country and a region are advantaged, we are not immune to the ravages of inequity right here in our own community, particularly in communities of color. The recent report by the Dellums Commission examined racial inequality in this country and concluded we are witnessing another generation of young men of color who have few options and opportunities to lead full and happy lives.

But inequality goes beyond color to involve health status, education, income, gender, homelessness, crime, unemployment – all measures of the quality of life. In fact, when we open our eyes and look, we see that some residents of King County suffer from unacceptable disparities across the most basic economic and social conditions of our society.

In King County, African American babies are three times as likely and Native American babies are four times more likely to die before their first birthdays than white babies.

The working poor -- people with incomes between $15,000 and $25,000 per year -- are almost 10 times as likely to not have health insurance than those with incomes over $50,000 per year.

The median income of white households is almost twice that of African American households.

We can do better than this in King County. We must accelerate our efforts to bring equity to all people in our county.

What if all residents of King County have the same opportunities regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation, or disability, to receive the same quality education, the same access to basic health care, the same opportunities to work for a living wage, the same access to affordable housing, the same ability to live in safe neighborhoods, and the same opportunity to enjoy the natural environment?

In stark contrast to the statistics I recited earlier, a new, better and very different King County would emerge.

If all of our residents had access to jobs paying a living wage -- 390,000 fewer individuals would be living in poverty and instead, would be enjoying the fruits of living in one of the best places on the planet.

If each and every school in King County were as excellent as the schools our most privileged young people enjoy --- almost 1,000 more youth of color would graduate from high school each year and our workforce would be better prepared to take on the challenges of economic diversification and global change.

We can't fund the change, but we can be the catalyst for change.

So I will be asking the departments and other separately elected officials to be the change; to be the answer not the problem.

We will work with the Council, key stakeholders and our communities to shape this in the coming months. We will release a report in December outlining our initial steps.

This is only a beginning and some might think about the proverb that talks about the longest journey beginning with a single step. But we are more fortunate than that. We are not taking the first step. Many have come before us, and many listening to me today have dedicated their lives to this goal. Nonetheless, I'm under no illusion that this is anything but a long journey along a difficult, rocky path. But there are few, if any, journeys with as important a destination.

Finally, if all people in King County had healthy environments to live in, the knowledge to make healthy lifestyle choices, and access to high quality, affordable health care, as a community we would all live longer – but even more importantly – healthier lives. We would be a community of people living life to the fullest, without being held back by preventable illness and chronic disease.

The challenges are great to realize this dream of King County. Undoing decades of inequality will take many years of persistent and steady efforts.

So as we submit this 2008 Budget – the first to carry the likeness of Dr. King -- we shall take his vision to heart. Some 40 years ago, Dr. King offered this yardstick to measure a one's worth:

"The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy."

These are challenging times. Some may say these are controversial approaches. But I know the measure of this Council. I know you will stand with me and pass this budget that your leadership helped create. Demonstrate, as you have so often, that we are worthy to call ourselves servants of Martin Luther King County.

Thank you.

 

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  Updated: Oct. 16, 2007