Libby Williams reports from a special meeting of the Island County Commissioners on Mon., Dec. 1, 2025 for the Stanwood Camano News. Read the whole story.
Summary by Perplexity AI
Budget Director Susan Geiger told Island County commissioners that, after 11 work sessions and 32 hours of discussion, the 2026 budget was balanced despite starting $1.3 million in the red and facing rising medical, insurance, and program costs. The $30 million in projected sales tax revenue, combined with property taxes and spending cuts, supports 24 departments and 47 funds, with 34% of expenditures going to salaries and benefits and staffing reduced by 6.42 FTEs to 507.64. Major appropriations cover maintenance, roads, solid waste, and general operations, plus $2 million in current expense fund commitments. The budget passed 2–1, with Commissioner Jill Johnson (R-Oak Harbor) warning of a potential “2027 budget disaster.”
They Said It
“I have never not voted for a county budget, and there is a lot of good things in this budget, and I certainly don’t want to give the impression that there is not,” [Johnson] said.
She said she feels that while departments made an effort to cut corners, the county didn’t do enough to compensate them fairly, and she worries bigger expenses are coming down the pipe.
“I feel like there were things we could have cut, and we didn’t set up a budget session to talk about these cuts … the worry really significantly is that we have a 2027 budget disaster because the tax we took needed to cover those escalating costs,” Johnson said.
“We don’t have the money for the expenses we know are coming.”
