If the old familiar saying is true – that it’s better to give than to receive – then San Juan County is by far the best.
Of Washington state’s 39 counties, San Juan is dead last in a county-by-county comparison of how much of its tax contributions each county gets back in spending from the state’s general fund.
That’s according to the Office of Financial Management (OFM), a data-driven state agency whose county-by-county, expenditure-revenue ratio report has given lawmakers from counties that provide more tax revenue than they receive, like King and San Juan, a bit more ammunition in the battle over spending cuts that’s underway in Olympia.
In crafting the state’s next two-year budget, lawmakers face a projected $4.6 billion shortfall.
“This strengthens the argument of why funding for the ferries is so important and why cutting service doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-San Juan Island, said of the expense-versus-revenue disparity highlighted by OFM’s report. “There is some buzz about (the report) and I’ll be making sure it gets a little more.”
While King County is the state’s most populous, and San Juan is among the smallest, both depend heavily on ferry service and are, coincidentally, on the extreme short end of the state spending stick.
In 2008, for instance, San Juan County received 46 cents for every dollar of tax revenue it contributed to the state’s general fund. King County, which generated nearly 42 percent of the state’s $14.6 billion general fund that year, and No. 38 on OFM’s report, received 62 cents for every dollar it sent Olympia’s way.
State House Rep. Reuven Carlyle of King County, D-Seattle, believes OFM’s numbers underscore an imbalance that should be considered as lawmakers wrestle with bridging the multi-billion dollar budget gap. Carlyle is expected to introduce legislation this session that links state spending to the percentage of revenue each county contributes.
Who stands to lose? That would be Ferry and Lincoln counties, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Located in the northeast corner of the state, Ferry County, population 7,800, received $3.15 for every dollar it contributed to the state general fund, while Lincoln County, which borders Spokane County to the west and is home to 10,344 residents, received $2.77 for every dollar of tax revenue provided to the state.
True parity, Ranker said, needn’t be absolute in determining how tax dollars should be spent, particularly in the short-term. He noted that lawmakers already face the possibility of having to eliminate 10,000 jobs and services that support low-income seniors and children to balance the biennial budget.
Still, Ranker said San Juan County’s status as a net-contributer to the state’s coffers should be taken into account in the debate over the fate and the funding of the state ferry system.
“It strikes me as unfair and unjust to be talking about service cuts when San Juan County is paying far more than our fair share,” he said.
