08/01/2026
$9.8 million. That's the hole Kitsap County is staring down for 2027.
The plan right now: raise sales tax a tenth of a percent, or cut up to 60 positions. Every department, including the one I work in, has been told to prepare a budget for both, because nobody knows yet which one we get.
Here's the part that should make every one of us angry. Even if the tax increase passes, it only raises about $7.7 million a year. That still leaves a $2 million gap, in the same year, in the same budget.
We're not fixing a deficit. We're hoping people keep paying more into a math problem that doesn't close.
Every dollar this county spends was earned income for someone in Kitsap first. A paycheck. A small business register. A grocery budget stretched a little thinner.
We don't get to treat it like it shows up from nowhere, and we don't get to keep kicking the real fix down the road and hoping next year's tax covers it.
Three choices in 28 years. Let's start confronting the numbers instead of hoping around them.
Please make your voice heard and vote by August 4
