Now you spend it, now you don’t. The $575,000 that may change Clallam County’s $1.1 million budget deficit to a $30,000 surplus will be a fleeting allocation.
County Administrator Jim Jones said increases in law and justice programs caused most of the shortage, so the county will dip into its Criminal Justice Fund to bridge the gap.
Just this once.
Starting in 2009, the county must find “efficiencies” – meaning cutbacks in workers and services – or new revenue.
That money might flow from a sales tax increase that the county’s Law and Justice Council briefly considered to fund a third judge for Superior Court.
The Criminal Justice Fund is supplied by the state based on the county’s population and felony criminal cases.
“We’ve held some back and budgeted conservatively,” Jones said prior to a budget briefing and preview of the six-year transportation improvement program in Port Angeles on Tuesday.
