Cowlitz County moves ahead with fourth‑quarter budget amendments; creates sheriff equipment fund and dissolves lodging reserve
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Summary
Finance Director Cathy Funk Baxter presented a fourth‑quarter budget amendment package that establishes a new Sheriff Equipment and Technology Fund, dissolves a long‑unused cumulative lodging reserve to move roughly $915,333 to tourism, and makes a series of technical adjustments to fund balances and interfund transfers ahead of the 2026 budget.
Cathy Funk Baxter, Cowlitz County finance director, presented the county’s fourth‑quarter budget amendment and said the package will be on the consent agenda at the next meeting. She told commissioners the net effect in the general fund of the recommended adjustments is positive: the general fund ending balance would grow by about $346,000 based on current estimates.
The amendment establishes a new Sheriff Equipment and Technology Fund and records approximately $932,000 of initial funding from multiple sources to seed that fund. Baxter said those transfers include an internal transfer of $150,000 from the sheriff’s general fund budget and additional transfers from IT and motor pool reserves as shown in the amendment documents.
Baxter also described dissolving an old cumulative reserve that had accumulated lodging‑tax‑related receipts from the Johnson Ridge era. She said the county is moving about $915,333 from that cumulative reserve into the tourism fund balance so tourism will have access to both current lodging revenue and the historical reserve for marketing or facilities work.
Other technical adjustments in the amendment package include true‑ups for IT operating and IT reserve fund balances (Baxter said prior budgets understated those balances and the amendment corrects them), multiple small departmental line corrections, and a $597,000 transfer into the budget stabilization fund, bringing that stabilization balance to roughly $3.5 million. Baxter said several health‑and‑human‑services contract and program adjustments appear in the packet; most are reassignments or timing corrections rather than newly requested ongoing general‑fund spending.
Why it matters: the amendments reallocate existing reserves and correct fund balances before adoption of the 2026 budget. Establishing the sheriff equipment fund centralizes technology and equipment purchases for law enforcement and separates those costs from other county operations.
Ending: Baxter said a mediation contract renewal and several other items remain in process and will return to the board when finalized; the budget amendment items on tomorrow’s consent agenda reflect the finance office’s quarter‑end reconciliations.