Sims' '07 budget proposal trims child-health project

King County Executive Ron Sims proposed a hold-the-line 2007 budget Monday that would trim two previously announced projects because of rising health-care and criminal-justice costs.

In presenting his nearly $3.9 billion spending plan to the Metropolitan King County Council, Sims asked that $1 million be set aside to sign up 8,000 children for government health-insurance programs. Because of rising costs, he didn't request money to buy health insurance for another 8,000 uninsured children as he had hoped.

The 2007 budget would cut back another initiative Sims had suggested in May: hiring three or four people for a "strike force" that would plan local responses to climate change. The global-warming office would now have a staff of one.

Sims said several factors put a damper on the projects: a rising jail population, higher public-defender costs, civilian oversight and increased supervision of deputies in the Sheriff's Office, and climbing costs for public health and employee health insurance.

Sims said his budget team based the budget on "conservative" revenue projections and "worst-case" assumptions about employee health-care costs.

"A potential general-fund deficit looms for 2008 and beyond," Sims told the council. "This can be avoided, but only if we continue our partnership as wise stewards of the public's checkbook and avoid the temptation to consume reserves."

If adopted by the County Council, Sims' budget would keep public-health clinics in Northgate and Bothell open for half of 2007 while the county lobbies the Legislature to pick up the tab for the rest of the year.

Sims said in his budget letter to the council that the growing number of people without health insurance — combined with changes in Medicaid reimbursement policy — have created a "funding crisis" that has pushed the county's general-fund spending on public health from $15 million to $27 million over four years.

The general fund, the discretionary account coming from local taxes, would rise from $577.7 million in the 2006 adopted budget to $625.3 million in 2007. Total county spending, including wastewater treatment, transit and grant-funded programs, would rise from $3.42 billion to $3.89 billion.

A bright spot on the horizon is the growing possibility that several suburban cities might annex unincorporated urban areas where the county spends more to provide local services, such as police protection, than it receives in taxes.

Sims said he expects to ask the County Council within weeks to approve agreements with cities that want to annex neighboring territory. Those agreements — being negotiated with Auburn, Federal Way and Renton — could lead to elections next year in which tens of thousands of residents would decide whether to join those cities.

Kirkland, Burien and Seattle are also studying possible large annexations just outside their borders.

Dow Constantine, chairman of the County Council's operating-budget committee, said Sims' budget proposal reflects the reality that "we have to make hard choices. There are not unlimited amounts of money."

He said his committee will take a close look at projected revenues and benefit costs, and the full council will decide whether Sims' budget matches the council's spending priorities of earning public trust, enhancing quality of life and protecting public health and safety.

Sims proposes spending $694 million on sewage-treatment projects, much of it for the Brightwater treatment plant in South Snohomish County. He called the projects "the most significant upgrade of our system in 40 years."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com