FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Skagit County Commissioners to Host Annual Budget Meetings
The Skagit Board of County Commissioners will host a series of budget work sessions over the next two weeks with each department and elected office to discuss 2026 budget requests. These work sessions are open to the public either in-person in the Commissioner’s Hearing Room at 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon, or via Zoom at the link on the Commissioners’ website below.
www.skagitcounty.net/commissioners
To view the schedule, please visit the Budget and Finance website.
While these meetings are open to the public, there will be no public comment taken during work sessions. These meetings are for the Commissioners to meet with staff to discuss budget requests and any other information requested by the Board to help make decisions as to items for inclusion in the 2026 budget. The draft 2026 county budget will be released for review on November 17, 2025, which will begin the official written public comment period. A public hearing to take feedback on the draft budget will be held on December 1st, 2025, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Written comments can be submitted at any time to the Commissioners’ Office at commissioners@co.skagit.wa.us or via mail to 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon, WA 98273, Attn: 2026 Budget. The written public comment period will end at the conclusion of the public hearing.
Please be advised, the schedule for budget work sessions is subject to change at any time, and the order for each presentation within a work session might be different than how the schedule is presented online. If you have any questions about the work session schedule, please reach out the Skagit County Commissioners Office at commissioners@co.skagit.wa.us
After work sessions with departments and elected offices, the County Commissioners will host two non-televised work sessions to review all budget requests collectively and provide direction to the Budget and Finance Department on which requests should be included in the draft 2026 budget. These work sessions will be held on October 9th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and on October 15th from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The Commissioners are scheduled to consider the 2026 budget for final adoption on December 8th at 2:00 p.m. County budgets are legally required to be adopted by December 31st of each year.
For more details, please visit the Skagit County Budget and Finance webpage.
2026 Budget Priorities
On July 21, 2025, the County Commissioners adopted a resolution to establish the 2026 county budget objectives. This annual resolution helps provide departments and elected offices with guidance and constraints as to how they should prepare budget requests for the following year. Local governments in Washington state are required to adopt a balanced budget each year.
The County Commissioners are facing a difficult budget year for 2026. If 2025 levels of service and county programs are maintained for 2026, Skagit County will face a $19M deficit in the General Fund. This deficit is the result of increasing operating and salary costs, flat revenues, changes to mandated services, and uncertainty with state and federal grant support. In order to pass a balanced budget, the County Commissioners adopted several priorities to help evaluate 2026 budget requests.
- General Fund budget must be balanced within available revenue sources and maintain a minimum reserve balance of 16.67% of expenses.
- Grant sources must be sustainable, particularly when used to pay staff salaries.
- Departments providing services to other agencies must ensure reimbursement rates for these services cover all appropriate costs.
- Fee schedules must be annually reviewed and analyzed to ensure direct and indirect expenses recover all appropriate costs.
- Departments should collaborate, when possible, with other agencies to provide services that increase efficiency, decrease expenses, and avoid duplication of services.
- Preliminary budgets must be prepared without backfilling lost or expired grant, state, or federal funding.
- Requests for new staff or programs and increased level of services shall only be considered for extraordinary circumstances and must be aligned with the Skagit County strategic plan.
To review the full list of priorities and objectives for the 2026 county budget, please read Resolution #20250154.
Questions or comments regarding the 2026 budget process can be directed to the Commissioners’ office at commissioners@co.skagit.wa.us or 360-416-1300.
### |
|
|
|
