Feeling Thankful in Uncertain Times

Hopefully you received a card from me or my e-newsletter; or both! However you found your way to my blog, thank you for giving a few minutes of your precious time to read it.

2025 was filled with many accomplishments and policy wins for our county. It was also filled with challenges and disappointments. Taking some time to reflect on the things that I am most proud of has become a tradition, and I thought I would tie it all together with my Blog: The Hitchen Post.

Top 5 for 2025

Passed a balanced 2026-2027 Budget

Movement on the Unified Regional Approach to Homelessness (URA)

Directly funding food purchases and expanding food access

Invested in Mobile Treatment Services

Direct investments in the community across District 6

Passed a Balanced Budget:

I have been through 2 biennial budget processes while a member of the Council, but this was the first time in the capacity as Chair. I will add, the last two times we had additional funding from our federal partners through CARES and APRA (COVID funding), and this time we are seeing potential cuts.

The feeling is VERY DIFFERENT, but the work remains the same. Our task was to use the resources we had and pass a balanced budget. While we obviously couldn’t fund everything we wanted, and there were a lot of wants; I appreciate the work of the Executive, other separately elected officials, our departments, staff and colleagues.

You can learn more about the budget here, and it is possible the Executive has not officially signed it by the time you are reading this, but there are some significant changes that were both policy and funding questions that we undertook this year. The 2026-2027 budget had some noteworthy highlights I want to share:

1. Increased many fees: for years the county used property and sales taxes to subsidize our fees for permitting and many other services OR didn’t charge a fee. What this meant was we were using the general fund to subsidize things like the staff to run building permits, or surface water projects, or arbitration through the courts. This year we passed a budget with some significant increases, which shifted the cost of these services to those wanting the service. This freed up revenue in the general fund for other items, which was desperately needed.
2. Invested millions in affordable housing, behavioral health (which includes mental health and substance use disorder services).
3. Continued to invest in expansion of parks and trails including: Parkland Trail, Gonyea Playfield, Half Dollar Park, Orangegate Park, Pipeline Trail, Sprinker Recreation Fields and several others.
4. Minimal but consistent increases in ferry fares, and the Youth Ride Free will continue for Pierce County as long as the state continues to fund it.
5. Investments in tourism, including funds directly from tourism in Pierce County being used to prepare for the World Cup.
6. Increased the number of lawyers hired by the county for Assigned Counsel. These are the lawyers that every person accused of committing a crime is allowed to have. We call this indigent defense, and the state has mandated that the number of attorneys must be comparable to population and types of cases. There is a lot to un-pack on this one, but at the end of the day, we added 18 new full-time employees but have no new fund source. This caused us to shift some things, and we will be looking for new revenue sources for this cost.

This process took over 10 weeks, and holding 30 meetings, and many different pieces of legislation. The staff that I have the privilege of working with did a phenomenal job and I truly appreciated my colleagues. I am, however, glad to be done with that part. We will be back to amend it as needed.

URA Work Continues:

In the last budget I proposed and we passed the use of ARPA funding to support the collaboration and planning for the Unified Regional Approach to homelessness in Pierce County. The work is not finished, and the group will continue to meet, make decisions and eventually agree on a way to make this a reality.

This group of elected leaders has continued to meet and will keep doing so in 2026. During this budget cycle I made sure to set aside enough funding to get something started, but as the group has not determined the “what” it will be, it was an estimate on my part; and it should not only be funded by the county. The point of this is to pull together people, plans and resources from across the county to work together and approach this effort as a team. This cuts down on duplication of services, people slipping through the cracks and slower response to changes in community needs. I am thrilled with the work so far, and look forward to continuing to move us towards, “making a deal and getting started.”

Food Insecurity Past and Present:

As I am writing this there is still uncertainty around SNAP (food stamps) and WIC (Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program) supports from the federal government, but there has continued to be a glimmer of hope in Pierce County.

Last biennium, this Council appropriated $1.2 million towards supporting the network of food banks and pantries across the county, but contracting with the Emergency Food Network to get supports out the door. In addition, this year we amended the budget to add an additional $800,000 all from the remaining ARPA funding to go directly to purchasing food.

During the first meeting in December we will take up one last amendment, that will add an additional $400,000 directly to 9 different food assistance providers across the county, with each Councilmember and the Executive selecting at least 1 entity to receive this funding in the month of December.

Needs are high, but we continue to determine how we can support those that are hurting the most. I am often reminded of just how hard it is to work, learn, think or heal when you are hungry. Food insecurity really is a public health concern, and I believe we should be addressing it as such. In this next biennium we did not invest as much, as we are no longer able to pull on federal dollars to support this investment, but we did appropriate $600,000 to partner once again with our non-profits that do this work every day. It will be something that I am keeping a close eye on as we move into 2026.

Mobile Treatment Starting Soon:

What does this mean? We live in a geographically diverse county, with parts of our county that are far away from services. But substance use disorder and mental health challenges touch every single part of our county, from Anderson Island to Elbe and everywhere in between.

I had the chance to walk through some mobile clinics and they are essentially an RV that has been turned into clinical and therapeutic space. The county is investing with a partner to purchase 2 mobile units and then staff them so that we can take the services to people across the region.

One of the biggest barriers to mental health and substance use treatment is that when someone is ready to make a change, or say yes to help, that work must happen then. It can’t wait for an appointment in 6 weeks. Especially with substance use disorder, when someone says today is the day, I want treatment and supportive services available the same day. Mobile treatment units get us closer to that reality.

Once a contract is confirmed, and vehicles are ready to hit the road, I will share an update. But I am thrilled to continue this work, as we have lost too many lives to overdose, and too many people have been harmed. This program brings me hope, along with the many other continued investments from the county around behavioral health supports.

District 6 Investments:

Sprinkled throughout the budget there were many exciting investments in projects, programs and people that will support the residents of District 6. You can refer to the full budget in the budget book, but it is over 400 pages long.

• General Government:
  • Community Needs Grant-a new program that was inspired by much of the good that was done by expanding partnerships with non-profits and other governments to support the larger community. Funding was provided to the following district 6 groups or programs.
    • Parkland Community Association for the Parkland School
    • We Love Steilacoom for food assistance
    • Family Promise
    • Communities in Schools of Lakewood
    • Franklin Pierce School District
    • Greentrike for early leaning programs at Pierce County Libraries
    • Oasis Youth
    • Palmer Scholars
  • Other investments at the community level include:
    • Amara
    • Blue Zones
• Public Safety & Legal:
  • Continued to invest for the next 6 months in the hiring bonuses for our Sheriff’s deputies.
  • We signaled that the Council is intending to apply to the state for the HB 2015 Public Safety funds, which will allow us to increase funding sources to support our public safety system as a whole.
  • There is an investment in a program to reduce the risk of guns being stollen out of vehicles with a new Lock-Box safe storage program.
  • Investing in the preliminary work on a new Remann Hall to better support the needs of our youth in crisis.
  • Outstanding in all of this is the contract with our patrol and corrections deputies. Those contracts potentially will not be settled until mid 2026. This Council has done their best to set aside funds to address this, but until we know the true cost, it is hard to determine what options we have for new things when it comes to law enforcement.
  • Added 17 new positions to Assigned Counsel, in part due to changes with a recent Supreme Court case, that required us to reduce the number of cases individual lawyers were handling.
  • Worked to restore employees to the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center, that respond to domestic violence across the county.
• Parks and Recreation:
  • Funded the conservation of a portion of the old golf course at PLU so that open space would remain natural prairie lands in a growing urban area.
  • Parkland trail project breaking ground and first half to be built this biennium.
  • Gonyea Playfield construction to happen this biennium.
• Human Services:
  • Continued investments in direct services for behavioral health, including youth and senior services.
  • Continuing therapeutic courts.
  • Investing in mobile treatment.
  • Investments in affordable housing, shelter and wrap around services to keep people housed.
  • Investments in youth programing, this funding has not been allocated at the time of writing this but will happen early in 2026.
  • Increased funding for services for veterans with a goal to increase the number of vouchers going out, and direct services provided to honor those that served.
• Planning and Public Works:
  • Ferry fares increased by 5% this year and will continue 2-boat service on weekends. The schedule is still being established.
  • Ferry projects include improvements and repairs on the Anderson and Ketron Island docks and Steilacoom dock, a generator installed on the Anderson Island dock to support services should the power be out, and regular and required maintenance of both vessels.
  • Variety of road projects to improve multi-modal use in the Parkland area, including several safe-routes-to-school projects.
  • Schoolhouse Creek Culvert Replacement at the mouth.
  • Continued work on the clear zone land purchases.
  • Continued work towards removing the Chambers Bay Dam and replacing the bridge.

At the end of this process, we approved an almost $3.5 Billion budget over the biennium. We approved just over 3,500 full time employees and I am really proud of the work we did as a Council to be responsive to the county needs, and thoughtful about future spending. We reserved our fund balance to be ready to address the MANY unknowns that are before us over the next two years, but this foundation will set us up and make sure we have the funding and people to do the work every day.

Thank you for taking the time to read this full blog. I recognize that there was a lot shared here, but we did a lot this year as a Council. There is a great deal of progress made while thinking long-term about the residents that call Pierce County home.

Have a wonderful holiday season,

Jani