(The Center Square) – With a $15 million deficit looming, Financial Services Director Brian Carlson told the Board of Yakima County Commissioners on Tuesday that it’s time to bring solutions to the table.
Last week, Carlson placed the shortfall between $13 million and $15 million, warning that the general fund only has enough set aside to fill the hole once. Yakima County has adopted a structural deficit of $5 million for the last two years, with several other factors tacking on to the total heading into 2026.
Rather than relying on tax hikes to close the delta, the board plans to balance the budget with cuts.
Personnel make up the bulk of general fund spending, so the board may have to reduce its headcount countywide to make ends meet. Carlson said Tuesday that the county faces an annual turnover rate of around 8%, which amounts to about 30 positions, with salary and benefits costing $3 million per year.
“As we unwind from our structural deficits and try to push back on all of the red ink pressures, this topic rises to the top,” Carlson said. “Can we eliminate a third of these vacancies? I don’t know, but we’re about to find out, because … capturing some of the vacancies is going to be a critical part.”
Carlson said his job is to find high-value targets, not to dump a data table on the board and expect it to figure out what to do. He also suggested shifting a third of the vacancies to the three-tenths fund.
Another option, which would have to pair with other savings, is reducing the costs of internal services in the general fund to what it was in 2023. Carlson said those services cost around $30 million five years ago, but have since risen to roughly $40 million countywide, with $34 million set aside in reserves.
Those internal services reserves are separate from the general fund, allowing county departments to plan ahead for purchases a year or two away. Carlson thinks they can pull back spending a bit to find a target of $2 million in savings, with the fund balances offsetting some of that with other efficiencies.
“Municipalities are limited to 1% growth,” Commissioner Amanda McKinney clarified on Tuesday. “So we’ve seen our costs increase exponentially beyond normal inflation, while our revenue stream that comes from taxation, from our tax structure, has gone to the state rather than to the county.”
Carlson wants to facilitate a “managed descent,” rather than making extensive cuts that may result in a “crash landing,” disrupting services. He said they need a little bit of everything and asked the board to offer their own solutions moving forward with a focus on big-ticket savings.
He said the board will need to challenge assumptions from county staff that their departments require a certain level of funding or that potential cuts aren’t feasible. Carlson noted it might sting at first, but eventually it will lead to a productive dialogue where everyone participates in balancing the budget.
“We’re all in this big leaky boat, every fund, every department, everything touches everything else,” Carlson said. “It all goes together; so I encourage you, don’t waste your time on ‘it’s not general fund.’”
