The southwest corner of the Historic Lewis County Courthouse is seen on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, in Chehalis.
Officials from around the county and state continue to mull strategies for weathering the current economic storm.
At the county level, Lewis County Manager Erik Martin said property taxes are the biggest of the various streams the county receives its revenue from.
He said while property taxes are relatively stable, there is a chance that could change over time.
“Obviously, in a recession, everything goes down,” Martin said. “We’re going to be wary of that if there is a coming recession.”
The county has seen decreases in sales tax and in gas tax during the lockdown forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Martin. He said the gas tax plays a significant role in the county roads program and due to the shortages in both the short and the long-term, a project has already had to be cut.
Sales tax revenue is responsible for 20 percent of the county’s overall revenue stream. So far, Martin said the county is down about 8 percent from 2019, which he admits isn’t as bad as initially expected.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re not concerned,” Martin said. “We’re very concerned. If people can’t return to their jobs and if we do fall into a recession, then obviously sales tax is going to continue to diminish.”
He said the county is trying to base the decisions concerning the budget on reliable data and revenue forecasts. Additionally, Martin said the BOCC has asked county offices to stay conservative in spending.
Still, the county remains ready to move on further measures as needed.
“If the downward trend continues and revenue streams just aren’t there, it could mean it could impact employees in different ways, depending on how the board chose to deal with those shortfalls,” Martin said. “It also could impact services … certainly could impact both employees and the public from a service standpoint.”
In the Lewis County Board of Commissioners’ weekly Economic Recovery Forum on Wednesday, Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, informed those in attendance that based on a revenue forecast received on Wednesday morning, the state is expected to be down $4.5 billion over the remainder of the current biennium and about $4.3 billion in the next.
He said the drop in revenue is going to be around $9 billion over that span.
“We still will have growth from this biennium to the next biennium of about three billion,” Orcutt said. “But we drop that whole line down to parallel where it was by about $4.5 billion dollars. It’s going to be some rough sledding for the next four or five years.”
Orcutt continued by saying there isn’t much time to take action that could impact the current biennium.
“We do have some money in the ending fund balance and in the rainy day fund, but that’s not enough to cover everything,” he said.
During the meeting, Orcutt noted an effort from Republican legislators in Washington to call a special legislative session.
From Martin’s perspective, the hope is that the state’s legislators will continue to work toward finding solutions. He also thinks a special session would be beneficial.
“I would like to see them at work, trying to help,” Martin said. “I know that many of our legislators that represent our local area, from what I’ve heard from them, they do want to go into a special session and they would prefer it be sooner rather than later.”
The economic situation presented by the COVID-19 pandemic is something Martin says is unlike anything he, or others he’s spoken to, has ever experienced. He added the county has to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
“I think a lot of people are comparing it to some of the issues that were dealt with 60, 70 years ago with the depression and the war,” Martin said. “I’m hopeful and I’m optimistic that people are going to get back to work and that the resurgence that we’d seen in the economy in 2019 and early 2020 is going to continue, but we just don’t know.”
