[Klickitat] 🛑 Missing Millions & The Library Squeeze - 3/17

Klickitat Board of County Commissioners is shifting into an offensive legislative posture as local budgets get squeezed by Olympia and Washington D.C. This week, we break down a massive seventeen-year accounting error by the state that shorted the county two million dollars, the data privacy risks of the new federal SAVE Act, and what you can do right now to protect the White Salmon Library from future budget cuts. Catch up on the 3/17 Klickitat BOCC meeting.

In This Episode:

• The unfunded mandate crisis crushing rural public defense.
• The thirty-five million dollar price tag of the federal SAVE Act on Washington auditors.
• A step-by-step guide to defending the White Salmon Library's budget.
• The upcoming April fifteenth tour of the Boardman "Families First" childcare center.

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written version of the newsletter at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• https://www.klickitatcounty.gov/643/Board-of-County-Commissioners
• https://www.familiesfirstchildcarecenter.com/about
• Email the Board of County Commissioners: bocc@klickitatcounty.org

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Transcript

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Welcome to the audio edition of the Click-a-Tatler, an open gorge project keeping an eye on the friction, finances, and future of Click-it-Tat County. I'm Kate. If you live in the gorge, you already know that local government is where the actual rubber meets the road. And this week's Clickitat Board of County Commissioners meeting on March 17th was a perfect example of when that road is full of potholes and the state refuses to pay for the asphalt. The vibe in a room is candid, cynical, and sounded openly frustrated with the continuous nickeling and diming of local rural budgets. Today we're digging into a multi-million dollar state accounting error, a looming threat to the White Salmon Library, and hidden data privacy costs of new legislation. Let's get into it. Turning first to the state friction. So let's start with the gas tax shortfall. The state miscalculated gas tax distributions for 17 years from 2006 to 2023. Statewide, it is a $110 million error. Clickatat County alone is owed approximately $2 million. The kicker? The state is only allocating $30 million statewide to fix this through something called the County Road Administration Board or CRAB, C-R-A-B. And they're not paying a dime of interest on the funds they withheld for almost two decades. So as if that was not enough, Clickitat is also bracing for new state mandated public defense standards. So next year, maximum caseloads for public defenders, the folks who help you out when you are entitled to counsel in court, are being forced down from 90% to 80%. So the state mandated this, but they didn't provide funding to hire extra attorneys required to meet this new standard. And in a small rural legal system, this isn't just a math problem. It's actually a really big logistical headache. In small towns, as you know, everybody knows everybody. And public defenders frequently face ethical conflicts of interest. This means that they might have previously represented a key witness or have personal ties to a victim that might force them to step away from a case. So when local defenders are legally disqualified, the county has to pay a massive premium to recruit private attorneys from outside this area just to meet our constitutional requirements. Because of this unfunded squeeze, the county is throwing its support behind a lawsuit against the state of Washington. So moving on to local infrastructure, that same budget squeeze we keep talking about is actually trickling all the way down to our county facilities and forcing the board into triage mode. We saw this clearly with discussion around the White Salmon Library. The board approved a fee waiver for an upcoming youth reading event and then put the facility on notice. The county is apparently losing about $10,500 a year operating and maintaining the building while pulling in less than $1,200 in rental revenue. And the commissioners made it clear if a group has its own dedicated tax funding, like the library district does, the county wants to start charging them rent and maintenance fees next year to stop the financial bleeding. We also saw community friction boil over regarding roads. Calling in from Houston, resident Sherry accused the board of waste and favoritism. Sherry alleged that the county is using public tax dollars to upgrade the roads strictly to benefit the highly controversial under-canvas luxury clamping development rather than making the private developer foot the bill. So this brings us to a topic that we watch closely over here at the Click of Taddler, which is rural data and privacy. So county officials are monitoring the proposed Federal Save Act, S-A-V-E, which would mandate a strict photo ID and proof of citizenship for voting. Beyond the politics, the act would effectively force small county auditor offices to build and secure massive new databases of highly sensitive personal information. The Washington Association of County Auditors recently estimated that this unfunded mandate of the SAVE Act would cost the state between $35.7 million and $39.3 million just to implement for this upcoming 2026 midterms. So if passed, the burden of protecting that data from breaches is also falling right onto local taxpayers. So finally, an update on Clickitac County's severe childcare shortage. The math here is pretty stark. There is roughly 1,046 children age five and under in our county, but only 178 licensed childcare spots. That means five out of every six kids in Click-Atac County are left without local child care options. Advocate Gabrielle Gilbert has been leaving the charge to change this. This week she announced a major next step. She successfully organized a tour of the family's first daycare center in Bordman, Oregon, scheduled for April 15th. The Boardman Center is the gold standard for rural childcare. It operates as a public-private partnership between the local school district, the county, and the state. Gilbert has formally invited the commissioners to attend the tour, framing it as the only proven sustainable blueprint for ending our local childcare desert. We'll be watching to see who hops across the river to take notes. So I wanted to leave you today with a little bit of an editor's note on the white salmon library friction. You might have heard that the commissioners use the phrase well-funded entities lately, and it sounds like a dry bit of budget jargon. So what does that mean? In plain English, it's a bit of a shot across the bow of our local library. So because the library district, F V R L, recently passed a library levy lift lid, the commissioners now see them as a partner that should start paying its own way on its rent. So on the surface, the county's math might seem to make sense. They're hunting for every penny to cover that $2 million gas tax shortfall. But there's a problem here. There is a double tax trap you should know about. You already pay county property taxes to maintain county buildings. So if library levy dollars are then sucked back into the county's general fund to pay that $10,500 possibly in rent, you're essentially paying for that same roof twice. The money you specifically voted to spend on more books and longer hours as part of that levy would instead be used to plug a hole in the county's infrastructure budget. And as we head into summer budget workshops, we have to decide if we want the county to act as a landlord looking for that profit back or as a partner protecting a vital and free public service. So if you're worried about the county taking aim at this critical public resource or however it is that you see this particular issue, the time to act and be heard is right now. The board just approved its budget calendar, which means that summer and fall budget workshops are coming up really fast. You can go on the record during public comment any Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., or you can email the full board directly at bocc at clickattackcounty.org. So that's the radar for this week. Looking ahead, the board is hosting a workshop on short-term rentals and code enforcement on March 26th. That's coming up real quick this week. And the Planning Commission will hold a hearing on accessory dwelling units on April 20th. If you want to dive deeper into the funding shortfall or find direct email addresses for commissioners, you can read the full written version of this newsletter edition at schemania dispatch.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Kate. We'll see you back here next time.