Pierce County executive proposes pay raises in 2016 budget

Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy wants to give county employees a cost-of-living salary increase and slightly boost staffing in 2016.

She submitted her budget proposal to the Pierce County Council last week, touting it as a stable and sustainable plan. The council will review it over the next two months and hold public hearings so county residents can weigh in.

McCarthy’s budget includes a 2.5 percent pay raise for the executive as she enters her last year in office, a raise recommended by an independent salary commission.

It’s the second attempt to increase McCarthy’s pay after last year’s proposed raise was rejected by the County Council. Her annual salary this year is $179,336.

An increase in McCarthy’s pay, if approved by the council, would lead to an automatic raise for council members after the next election cycle because their salaries are tied to the executive’s.

The pay hike for rank-and-file county workers would be their third consecutive annual increase. Before that, in the heart of the economic recession, they went three years without one.

Their raises would come in two phases — 1.1 percent in January and 1 percent in June, for a net total of 1.6 percent.

McCarthy said the pay increase for employees acknowledges their hard work to increase efficiency despite the reduction of staff over the last several years.

The total number of full-time county employees has dropped by nearly 400 since 2009.

“It’s very modest,” she said of the salary bump. “We’re continuing to ask people to do more with less.”

McCarthy is term-limited and will leave office at the end of 2016 after two four-year terms as executive.

Her budget for next year includes a proposed 1.7 percent increase in the general fund to $287.9 million. The general fund includes day-to-day spending on traditional government services, such as law enforcement, courts and parks.

The proposed total county budget of $902.3 million is $30.2 million lower than 2015. The total budget includes designated spending such as buildings, roads and other capital projects.

Gary Robinson, the county’s director of budget and finance, said the decrease in the overall budget is primarily because the Chambers Creek Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion project is in its final phases.

In addition to the proposed pay raise for county workers, McCarthy requested hiring more full-time employees to accommodate growing service demands. There would be a net increase of about 12 full-time employees, for a total payroll of about 2,994 full-time equivalent employees. No layoffs are planned.

Proposed changes in Corrections Bureau staffing were most significant. The jail would fill positions for 12 more deputies and two additional sergeants, 14 positions that are tied to a jail services contract with Tacoma that was reinstated earlier this year.

In 2012, Tacoma ended its partnership with Pierce County and started sending misdemeanants to Fife. The hiatus resulted in layoffs of county deputies due to a $5 million corrections deficit in 2013. The deficit grew to $7.2 million last year, according to the proposed budget.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said that he opposed the layoffs and that his department is still playing catch-up from the recession.

Pastor said he asked for six more deputy positions in 2016, separate from those tied to the Tacoma contract. The proposed jobs would supplement eight positions that were added in 2015. It would boost jail staffing to the level recommended in an audit last year, he said.

McCarthy’s proposed budget didn’t include the additional jobs requested by the sheriff.

“I look forward to a conversation with the council as they consider the budget in the weeks ahead regarding this subject,” Pastor said.

McCarthy said the corrections audit included more than 30 recommendations, not just boosting the number of deputy positions. The department shouldn’t “cherry pick” which items to follow, she said.

“We have a lot of vacancies,” McCarthy said. “Let’s fill the vacancies we already have.”

McCarthy said that when those positions are filled, the county may revisit whether to increase jail staffing. She noted that public safety and justice services, which includes corrections spending, already account for about 80 percent of the general fund.

Pastor has said his department expects to fill the current vacancies by the end of the year.

He expressed gratitude that McCarthy proposed continued funding for a Corrections Bureau medical director, and he acknowledged that the county’s staffing issues can’t be solved overnight.

The County Council will approve a final budget in November.

At least one council member is concerned about the revenue outlook.

Councilman Derek Young said the budget staff doesn’t seem optimistic about the health of the economy.

Budget officials anticipate a 1.5 percent increase in sales tax revenue in 2016. Young said it’s unusual that the projected sales tax growth is less than 3 percent.

“That tells me that they’re not projecting much economic growth in Pierce County next year,” Young said. “It’s something that will impact a lot of our discussions.”

County spokesman Ron Klein said the lower projection is due to a lack of one-time revenues that were accounted for in 2015, such as from the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.

“These are just projections,” Klein said. “We don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 6:49 PM with the headline "Pierce County executive proposes pay raises in 2016 budget."