SNOHOMISH COUNTY—Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers delivered the county’s first biennial budget to the County Council Wednesday, September 4, for the years of 2025 through 2026. The proposed budget including all funds totals $3.07 billion over the next two years (an increase of 6.66% from the previous 2023-24 cycle) that includes a proposed General Fund budget of $699.8 million (an increase of 10.9%).
The budget prioritizes public safety, continuing efforts to protect the land and water, preserving existing programs focused on addressing the drug crisis, providing direct health services through the Health Department, while also continuing to direct resources to the Departments of Public Works, Planning and Development Services, Emergency Management, Health, Human Services, and Conservation and Natural Resource, as well Paine Field Airport and internal operations (such as Human Resources, IT, Facilities, Finance, Medical Examiner, Prosecuting Attorney, the Sheriff’s Office, and both District and Superior Courts.)
Somers also stressed fair compensation for government workers pledging absolutely no layoffs. He added that fairly adjusting salaries for inflation is vital to ensuring the county can sustain positions and successful recruitment efforts.
“I’m a strong believer in partnerships and collaboration. County government is a large, complex operation and we need everyone working together to deliver the best results,” said Somers Wednesday. “Among those who make it work are county employees who are the bedrock of our service to the community…I take it as a personal responsibility that we pay them well and give them good benefits.”
Since Somers entered the County Council in 1998, he has witnessed a tremendous shift in how the county budgets and spends taxpayers’ money, he shared.
In 1998, 56% of the county’s General Fund budget was spent on public safety agencies. In 2024, just over 75% of its general fund budget is now being allocated to those same agencies. This not only demonstrates the county’s commitment to public safety, Somers added, but also the structural challenge of the county government as a whole. The Parks Division, he used as an example, would be able to improve access, maintain more parks, and hire more rangers if it had more resources.
Somers said the county has been as frivolous as it can with spending, saving $80 million from building a more modest courthouse to marshaling the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to maximize interest.
However, the challenge therein lies with the county’s continuous growth—a rate of 15% every ten years the county projects. The county’s population has grown to nearly 900,000 with a projection of more than 1 million people by 2040.
The second challenge shared is inflation, with the Consumer Price Index rising by 3.63% in recent months.
The county is allowed, by law, to increase property taxes by just over $3 per year per household with a median home price of $665,000 which Somers said won’t be enough to keep up with rising inflation which to offset require both revenue and savings between $10 and $15 million every year. His solution is to use the county’s banked capacity but if voters fail to approve a specified levy, then the plan would likely have to be adjusted accordingly.
In addition, the significant funding the county received from the federal government for pandemic recovery is coming to an end. The county used ARPA funding to build childcare capacity, expand broadband access, as well as ensuring the county could avoid layoffs and maintain services. However, with that funding expiring those service levels cannot continue to be supported.
Still, Somers pledged that his proposed budget avoids layoffs although it will have to come at a cost of only partially funding three new positions from the General Fund which, he said, will be centered on public safety. One being required by state law which requires more work on protection orders, the second an oversight position at the Enterprise Resource Planning replacement project, and third a position dedicated to radio capabilities in the state of an emergency.
County Departments have been hit hard with staffing and resource shortages as of late—from the Prosecutor’s Office struggling to keep up with case backlogs, to the Health Department struggling to issue food permits resulting in hundreds of restaurants awaiting open confirmation —but Somers said the county simply does not have the money to do more.
“I know that there are real needs and that every department, office, and agency could serve the public better with more staff. But we should not hire people today that we may need to lay off tomorrow,” said Somers. “We always look hard for savings during our budget process. However, since over 75% of our general fund budget is dedicated to funding public safety agencies, some of our savings would have to come from those same agencies. There is no other way to balance the budget.”
Snohomish County, which remains one of the largest counties in Washington State, has one of the smallest General Fund budgets per capita. It’s about 73% that of Pierce County, which is of comparable size, and has the lowest tax rate out of King, Pierce, and Snohomish. The county has about a $10 million shortfall every year just to keep up with cost increases for salaries and benefits for county employees. One of the reasons the county moved to a biennial budget this year is to be smarter about its General Fund resources, alleviating the amount of work done every other year by a more efficient budget process.
With the opioid epidemic plaguing communities, and over 75% of the General Fund budget already being directed towards public safety, Somers noted that this is also why the county is asking taxpayers to approve the Public Safety Sales Tax this November.
Now that Executive Somers has delivered his proposed budget to the council, the five county councilmembers will interview department heads then vote on amendments before approving the biennium budget in November.
