Drafter
Clerk 10/14/2008
Title
AN ORDINANCE related to the support of the King County law library; directing the director of the department of judicial administration to reduce the allocation of the portion of superior court civil filing fees paid to the credit of the library from the current twenty dollars to seventeen dollars as provided by RCW 27.24.070; and amending Ordinance 12383, Section 2, as amended, and K.C.C. 4.81.010.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. RCW 27.24.070 requires the county treasurer to deposit into the county law library fund a minimum of seventeen dollars of every civil filing fee collected in superior court.
2. In 2006, King County Ordinance 15317 increased the law library's portion of the superior court filing fee to twenty dollars, as allowed under RCW 27.24.070.
3. In 2009, the King County general fund has a projected deficit in excess of 90 million dollars. The deficit is driven by a structural imbalance between the restricted growth rate of revenues and the higher growth rate of expenditures.
4. The magnitude of the general fund deficit makes it untenable to provide the law library more than the minimum allocation of the civil filing fee required by state law. A reduction in the portion of the filing fee going to the law library will result in additional revenue to the general fund.
5. The King County executive has identified a "lifeboat" strategy that provides six months of funding for some programs. This strategy will allow the county to work with the Washington State Legislature during the 2009 legislative session to craft a solution that would provide King County - and all other counties across the state that suffer from the same structural imbalance - with the flexibility and revenue options required to sustain these basic and important services over the long term.
6. The 2006 increase in the law library's allocation of the civil filing fee is among the items in the lifeboat. If the state legislature fails to provide King County with options to address the structural imbalance in the general fund, the revenue generated by three dollars of the law library's share of the civil filing fee will be needed to meet the 2009 deficit.
7. If the state legislature does provide the county with options to address the entire general fund deficit on an ongoing basis, the executive will transmit an ordinance repealing the reduction in the law library's share of the civil filing fee.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Ordinance 12383, Section 2, as amended, and K.C.C. 4.81.010 are each hereby amended to read as follows:
The director of the department of judicial administration is directed to allocate ((twenty)) seventeen dollars from the portion of the filing fee paid for civil filings in superior court to the credit of the King County law library as provided by RCW
27.24.070.
SECTION 2. This ordinance takes effect July 1, 2009.