The Board met in Special Session for the purpose of conducting a budget workshop on October 24, 2005 beginning at 9:00 a.m. held at the Courthouse Annex Hearing Room #102B, 1 N. E. 6^th Street, Coupeville, WA. Mike Shelton, Chairman, Wm. L. McDowell, Member, and William J. Byrd, Member, were present.

Budget workshop times are approximate and may be adjusted. Proposed budget and supplemental requests are taken under advisement by the Board; no final decisions expected as a result of budget workshops. Hand-outs are on file with the Clerk of the Board.

Presentation by: Elaine Marlow

Hand-Out: Supplemental Budget Request Worksheet 10/24/05

GSA. Review further the request to increase an administrative assistant position to 1.0 FTE. In 2002 for this position, working hours were reduced.

DES. The Board would like to meet with the DES Director and review the long range plan – ask the Director to attend a staff session and review with the Board where DES is going as a department, so that the Board can be better informed.

WAIF. Decision deferred as far as the request for full retention of adoption/surrender fees and retention of 20% license revenue to offset license administration costs.

Parks. At a prior workshop the Board tentatively approved two Park seasonal 6-month employees. On further review and discussion, the Board today tentatively agreed to fund two Parks seasonal employees at five months each (about $10,000 each) and to bring the current 4 month seasonal parks worker to 5 months.

Four Springs. The Board agreed to look at a declining funding level on a three year basis, $15,000; $10,000 $5,000, to be re-evaluated every year. Will send a letter to the support groups advising them of the funding proposal.

District Court. Budget Director has not yet factored in the State’s portion that reimburses the County for District Court Judge’s salary, etc. No decision on the supplemental request; to be revisited.

Braun Consulting. Board tentative approved $24,000 reflecting the 5% reinstatement plus 4% increase, but no reimbursement for actual travel costs.

EAP Program. Board tentatively agreed to allocate up to $10,000 resources for a year to review use and whether or not it would be cheaper per a contract, subject to discussion with Dick Toft, to see if EAP service is available on as needed basis when not under contract.

Juvenile Court Services. Approved New Position CASA Admin. Asst. @ .5 FTE

Maintenance. The Department will be able to purchase the 6 radios from the 2005 budget and attempt to purchase the dump trailer from the 2005 budget as well. The Board tentatively approved the request to purchase a man-lift from the 2006 budget, and will look at the need for a steam kettle for the Jail once the JDC is on line, and if necessary, could be purchased from Commissioners contingency.

EDC. Outreach program $25,000 not approved.

Planning & Community Development. The Board tentatively agreed to the following:

The Board discussed and reviewed the Prosecutor’s request for salary increase for a $10,948 increase, and the Prosecutor’s salary tied to the salary of the Superior Court Judges (one-half funded by State) rather than County Commissioners.

Commissioner McDowell was not interested in tying the salary to the Superior Court Judges’ salaries, and as far as giving one Elected Official an increase he was hesitant about because all elected officials know what the salary is when running for office.

Chairman Shelton recalled that a few years‘ ago the Sheriff had a similar request, and at that time, an even more convincing argument in terms of the relationship of that salary to other sheriff salaries and the Chief of Police in Oak Harbor. At the time the Board approved a salary increase for Sheriff at 95% of the County Commissioners’ salaries, and for the Prosecutor from 120% to 125% of the County Commissioners’ salaries.

Greg Banks referenced the comparative salary chart provided previously to the Board [included in Budget Workbook page 173] for comparable counties sorted by population and salary, showing the Island County Prosecuting Attorney salary $11,000 below comparable counties.

Tentative Agreement by the Board was reached:

Approve Prosecuting Attorney Salary at 135% of County Commissioners

Approve Sheriff Salary at 110% of County Commissioners

The Board clarified that this would not open the door for Elected Officials, because other than the Prosecutor and Sheriff, those salaries are very competitive with like sized counties.

Mr. Banks appreciated the Board having taken the matter under consideration and having made some movement in the right direction. He made it clear this relates to the salary of the position, not necessarily the salary of the person in the office at the time. Whether him or his successor he believed the issue would be brought up again.

Senior Services of Island County.

In 2003 the County reduced all senior services by 5%. Even though located on South Whidbey, SSIC

truly is a senior services of Island County agency. The Budget Director looked at Senior Services of Island County’s budget to see how it compared from 2005 to 2006 and how they reallocated resources between various programs [hand-out Page 136.5]. SSIC thought they could get their Senior Center funded through funding sources other than Island County. Last year they were granted an increase to make their Senior Center comparable with the funding for the Oak Harbor Senior Center. Under Island County support one can see that Oak Harbor congregate meals increased. To restore all three senior centers the 5% reduction would be $10,100 plus the adult day care. Last year the Senior Center was funded $63,784 and adult day care $10,079. The 5% cut was not restored for Senior Services of Island County last year; just brought up to the same level as Oak Harbor. At this time, the Board tentatively approved $6,082 additional for SSIC.

Sheriff. The Board tentatively approved the request for 3 additional deputies and additional vehicles; the Computer upgrade $60,000 included in the Office Equipment Budget, and the Sheriff’s salary at

110% of the Commissioners salary.

Central Services. As follow-up to prior discussion Cathy Caryl and Chris Nelson, provided additional information regarding the request to upgrade PCs and software on a 3-4 year cycle. A new hand-out showed current desktop/laptop computers 2005 by department, the use and historically what has been spent on hardware and software. Combined for Current Expense and other funded departments, spend on average is $230,000 a year. The total number of Current Expense percentage of computers are 72%; other funded departments 28%; however, other-funded departments are spending more per capita than Current Expense. Best guess is that based upon these figures, in a perfect world to keep Current Expense departments up somewhere on par with the other funded departments, would cost about $150.000 a year for one-third of the computers on a three year cycle. On a four year cycle the cost would be approximately $112,500, which would work if starting out on a level playing field. To get everything even par the estimate would be $170,000 the first year, and then the cost for subsequent years would be $112,500 (does not include monitors, printers, etc. ). No decision reached.

WSU. Beachwatchers Funding. A citizen on Camano Island wanted to participate in the budget workshop on Beachwatchers funding. The Budget Director advised that she had not received any additional supplemental request for Beachwatchers funding, and the budget tentatively approved for funding as requested by Don Meehan.

Treasurer. Request to outsource tax statements and increase administrative assistant to 1.0 FTE was tentatively approved by the Board. The Board did not agree to an increase with respect to the cost of paper or to change the configuration of front counter and gate. Chairman Shelton noted that ever year the County will continue to receive a finding from the State Auditor until the Treasurer is able to get the back adjustments up to a more current level. Central Services Director agrees that outsourcing tax statements is a wonderful idea.

Auditor’s O&M Fund.

Transition Recording System to Eagle Recorder $70,000

Imaging Technology for Superior Court Clerk’s Office $70,000

Greg Banks, Prosecuting Attorney, would want access and would use it extensively. Other law enforcement would be interested in access as well.

The first phase as noted by Ms. Marlow proposed by the Clerk is to install Laserfiche; once up and running, every record received going forward would be scanned in the system, and at some point in time, come back to the Board asking to start scanning records from storage. Central Services is very supportive.

The Board tentatively agreed to fund both from Auditor’s O&M.

Board gave tentative approval to fund from Public Health Pooling fund balance the following:

• Nursing Program – continue programs at current level $80,817

• Environmental Health – continue programs at current level $32,717

• Software to track client data - $60,000.

Public Health Pooling Reserve for Leave Buy-out. The Board did not agree to fund a reserve for leave buyout.

Reevaluation of the Deputy Director of Administrative Services position. Commissioner McDowell to discuss with Human Resource Director for comparable positions.

Food Program. Discussed the request but no tentative agreement reached for an additional 1.0 FTE for Food Service Program because of increased inspection requirements under the recent code change; propose raising fees 54% to fund new employee. The Board talked about the new position and whether or not one half-time position could be considered. The Board was not willing to raise fees by 54%. The most Commissioner McDowell was willing to consider was a 27% increase in fees and the other 30% from Public Health Pooling reserves. Tentative Agreement to consider funding a .5 FTE instead of full 1.0 FTE; to be revisited at a subsequent budget workshop after discussion with the Health Services Director.

Insurance Reserve:

Tentative Agreement - $15,000 Total Station for investigation of accidents and crime scenes.

ISLAND COUNTY, WASHINGTON

______________________________

Mike Shelton, Chairman

_____________________________

Wm. L. McDowell, Member

_____________________________

William J. Byrd, Member

ATTEST:

_______________________

Elaine Marlow

Clerk of the Board