Kittitas County Public Health on Sept. 18 presented a preliminary 2026 budget and a proposed fee schedule for environmental health that would shift many fees to full cost recovery, producing substantial increases for some permit types. Chelsea Lutgers, public health director, told the board the department expects nearly $9 million in revenue and just over $11 million in expenses in the preliminary 2026 budget, reflecting the addition of a human services division and the use of fund balances to bridge differences between revenue and expenses. "We are estimating our revenue at almost $9,000,000," Lutgers said, "and we are estimating our expenses at a bit over $11,000,000." Lutgers said the department plans to operate with 28.7 full-time equivalent positions (31 staff) and is not requesting new FTE for 2026. A large share of the department's revenue and expenses now flows through human services subcontracts; Lutgers said contracted services will account for much of the budget as those funds pass to community partners. Environmental health staff presented the methodology behind substantial fee increases proposed for some drinking-water and permitting activities. Chelsea Lutgers and staff said the department uses time-coded, activity-level data and five-year averages to calculate per-permit staff time and then apply a full-cost-recovery hourly rate. For example, environmental staff reported three recent Group B water system applications consumed about 55 staff hours in total—an average of roughly 18.25 hours per application—whereas the prior fee schedule had used an average of about six hours per application. To smooth out year-to-year variation, staff used a five-year time average (about 11 hours for Group B applications) and proposed using 11.25 hours as the basis for the fee. "When we were billing for when we were using that six hour average time...we have to eat that, and that comes out of our fund balance," Lutgers said, explaining why staff favor a more conservative multi-year average approach. The department reported a fund balance of approximately $2.3 million, most of it restricted for items such as a six-month operating reserve, tuberculosis funds, isolation and quarantine reserves, and capital asset replacement. Katie (last name not specified), the department's public health accountant, reviewed the quarter-two financials and said revenues and expenses were tracking as expected; she noted one-time purchases this year included overdose-supply kits, a coroner lab machine at about $60,000, PurpleAir monitors and air purifiers for community distribution. The board of health voted to schedule a joint Board of County Commissioners and Board of Health public hearing to consider adoption of the 2026 fee schedule for Dec. 18, 2025, at 10 a.m. Lutgers and environmental health staff said they will use the intervening months to solicit stakeholder feedback and may request the board recommend targeted subsidies or offsets to selected fees; any offset would require the county commissioners to identify a fund source. Board members attending at the meeting generally expressed support for user-funded fees, saying users of a specific permitting service should pay for it rather than general taxpayers. Staff emphasized the department will conduct stakeholder outreach and hold a public hearing in December before any fee adoption.