County begins 2023 budget prep

MCSO hopes to add four sheriff deputies

Matt Baide | Oct 20, 20220

Mason County has begun the process of establishing the 2023 county budget with commissioner workshops earlier this week.

The commissioner’s 2023 preliminary budget is due to the public by Nov. 21. A public hearing to certify levies must occur before Nov. 30 and the budget hearing is scheduled Dec. 5.

The Mason County Sheriff’s Office 2022 maintenance level budget includes $1,143,172. MCSO’s salaries and benefits are $11,933,157, operating maintenance level budget is $3,404,382 and expenditures are $15,337,539. The Sheriff’s Office has 99.5 budgeted full-time positions.

The maintenance level budget includes everything that is contracted or that the commission has approved in past briefings, according to budget manager Jennifer Beierle during an Oct. 12 workshop.

Beierle said the Sheriff’s Office’s revenues are $189,667 higher than at this time last year. The salaries are $338,581 higher, the operating budget is $85,608 higher and the total expenditures are $424,189 higher than the adopted 2022 budget.

MCSO is asking for $870,692 in policy level requests for the 2023 budget.

The requests include adding four full-time sheriff deputy positions at $97,698 each and overtime of $165,000. The request has $169,900 for a contract with the animal shelter program, a behavioral health organization contract with the jail for $80,000 and $65,000 for trackables, including $60,000 for new vehicle computers that are not tracked through the information technology department, according to Beierle.

Mason County Undersheriff Travis Adams joined the budget workshop to explain the PLRs to the commissioners on Oct. 12.

Undersheriff Adams said the $80,000 is for a mental health and medical position at the jail.

Adams said MCSO has spoken with the humane society about entering into a contract for animal control services.

“That price was a full suite, kind of a la carte, it included a contract animal control officer, the vehicle, the cost for vet services and holding the animals for the court process, kind of the whole thing is what they were pricing out there,” Adams said. “I would say that it’s probably comparable to what it would look like if we hired somebody in house to do it because animal control officers $74,000 a year plus some change for wages and benefits. Plus we’re looking at a vehicle plus the vet fees and all the other nickel and dime items that come along with that so I think it’s probably in the ballpark. I will say that animal control is something that is a major drain of resources from our patrol division. I think we looked recently and we were somewhere in the 500 and something calls in July when we looked at it. That’s for half the year and it’s high liability, hard to track. It causes a real resource drain for our patrol folks and quite frankly, it’s work that a less expensive FTE could do and manage.”

Adams said the request for four new sheriff deputies and the need to increase capacity. MCSO Chief Ryan Spurling said the state average is 1.34 officers per 1,000 people.

“We’re at a 0.7, depending on how you draw your numbers,” Spurling said during the workshop. “We’d like to get up to one deputy per 1,000, not even necessarily the 1.34 Washington state average, but we know that we can’t do it all at once and even if you gave us the authority, we probably couldn’t hire all the people and get them trained all in one shot so we’d like to do it over a series of years or over a plan that’s more reasonable for everybody.”

Policy level requests from other county agencies includes $75,175 for the Auditor’s Office for a full-time public records position and extra help for elections. Human resources and risk management had $165,957 in policy level requests for one full-time human resources analyst, and centralized recruitment. District court’s policy level request was $123,915 for a full-time deputy administrator and interpreting services. The Coroner’s Office requested $241,476 in policy level requests for a full-time deputy coroner, forensic pathology services and extra help. The Office of Public Defense’s policy level request was $194,129 for contract increases.

To view the budget workshop documents, go to http://www.tinyurl.com/5xcunrhn.