A ray of good news broke through the gloom of impending layoffs and budget woes in the Island County commissioners’ final budget hearing Thursday afternoon.
The commissioners adopted the 2011 budget after restoring funding for a corrections deputy, a deputy prosecutor, and a new maternity support program that will replace two similar programs that were cut.
Still, the reductions cut deep into county programs, especially since it followed two years of significant paring of the current expense fund. During this round, commissioners cut nearly $2 million from the current expense fund, which will result in the elimination of 27 full-time equivalent positions, including six patrol deputies and two corrections deputies.
“It’s not going to be the same county government that it was before,” Commissioner Angie Homola said.
A new maternity support program was born from a combination of a sacrifice from the Superior Court office and conservative budgeting on the part of the health department director.
The commissioners originally directed Health Department Director Keith Higman to cut the Children’s Commission staff position and 40 percent of the current expense funding the department receives. Together with increased costs and reduced grants, Higman was facing a $544,000 deficit and the loss of eight positions.
Among the programs he was forced to put on the chopping block included the Maternal Support Services and the Welcome New Baby program, both of which provide support to new mothers.
In an interview, Higman explained that Maternal Support Services provides low-income, first-time mothers monthly office visits with a public health nurse. The program served 272 women last year. The state provides a $50,000 grant for the program, Higman said, but restricts who can be seen and mandates that appointments can be only 15 minutes long.
Higman explained that the Welcome New Baby program was started years ago — approved by three Republican commissioners and championed by former Commissioner Mac McDowell — in response to a groundbreaking study by Dr. David Olds, as well as followup studies, that showed remarkable benefits of programs in which nurses make home visits to new mothers. The visits had lifelong benefits for the kids and saved society huge amounts of money over the long run by reducing the amount of child abuse and neglect, greatly lessening the chance that the child will be convicted of a crime someday, reducing the number of hospital visits and reducing the likelihood either the child or pregnant mother will smoke.
“Most of the brain development that determines who we are occurs in the first three years of life,” Higman said.
Under the Welcome New Baby program, a public health nurse visits new mothers at their homes to help out on a variety of issues, from breast feeding to childcare. The program is open to anyone who has a baby and can continue until the child is 3 years old.
In an unprecedented move this week, the Superior Court judges and Court Administrator Mike Merringer decided to reduce their budget by $48,000 — by eliminating a position in the juvenile justice facility — on the condition that the money be used to support the maternity programs. Budget Director Elaine Marlow explained that Merringer and the judges felt it’s vitally important to retain a program that prevents children from ever becoming involved in the juvenile justice system.
Higman, who was thankful, said he also had budgeted very conservatively and believes he can find another $32,000. With a total of $80,000, he’ll be able to retain a public health nurse and create a new program to provide support to new mothers and their babies. The department won’t be eligible for the state grant anymore, but he said it was very likely the state was going to cut the grant program anyway. And without the state grant, he’ll be free to design a program that’s right for the county instead of having to follow sometimes-odd state rules.
The new program will be scaled back since it has only a quarter of the funding of the original two programs.
“We will touch fewer lives, but it’s an opportunity to make a better program,” Higman said.
In another piece of good news, Higman said he won’t have to eliminate the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which is better known as the WIC program. The federal program, administered through the county health department, provides food to low-income women and children up to 5 years old. He said the state came through with increased funding.
Besides the health department programs, the commissioners also said that their top priorities for funding were the sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices. The commissioners had set aside a chunk of money to restore some funding to departments after hearing public input.
In addition, Marlow worked with several department heads over the last couple of weeks to identify several other funding cuts. For example, Coupeville attorney Tom Pacher, who contracts with the county to represent indigent criminal defendants, agreed to cut his funding by 5 percent, which was about $25,000. Last year, two of the commissioners voted to increase his funding by 50 percent, sparking a controversy in the law-and-justice community.
In all, the commissioners had $140,000 to work with. Commissioner John Dean said his top priority was to bring back a deputy in the sheriff’s office, but Sheriff Mark Brown said restoring a corrections deputy in the understaffed jail was more important. Commissioner Helen Price Johnson pointed out that the prosecutor just lost one deputy prosecutor when a grant ended and he’s slated to lose yet another in the budget cuts.
In the end, they decided to give Brown $65,000 for a corrections deputy and $75,000 to Prosecutor Greg Banks for a deputy prosecutor. The sheriff will still lose six patrol deputies and two corrections deputies. The prosecutor will lose a support person.
Funding was also cut for flu shots, the impaired driving impact panel, the 4-H coordinator and the Master Gardener coordinator. Senior services organizations lost 40 percent of their funding from the county.
