Data · Democracy · Accountability
Taxpayers Deserve Accountability, Transparency and Innovation
I don't set this budget — I execute it, which means the only real lever I have is performance: what I get done with what the county gives me. Here's where that money goes. And here's what I'd do with it.
The Budget, Sourced Two Ways
$201,065 cut in 2026.
The Clerk doesn't set the budget — the Clerk executes it, and that's the part I control. I intend to get more out of what this office is given than it has in years.
Countywide Fiscal Outlook
$9.8M projected countywide budget shortfall for 2027 alone, per county commissioners and budget manager Kristofer Carlson.
Countywide expenses are projected to rise from ~$138M to ~$160M between 2026-2029 if no action is taken. The county's $39M in reserves could be fully depleted by roughly 2029.
This is the whole county's fiscal picture, driven mainly by the Sheriff's Office and jail medical costs — not the Clerk's Office specifically.
The Clerk's Office Own Budget Contribution
$201,065 cut in 2026 — the Clerk's Office total fiscal impact for the year, per the office's own September 2025 hearing slide.
Almost entirely from eliminating two positions through reclass and attrition, and the outlook doesn't look like it's getting better. New revenue came to just $10,000, from HB 1207 — a state-mandated court filing surcharge signed May 19, 2025.
Two fewer people handling the same volume of work leads to stress, delay, or dropped service for taxpayers if nothing changes in how the office runs day to day. I spent a decade running teams through fixed budgets and rising expectations and finding a way to hit the number regardless. Not by asking people to do more with less — by running the office so the people already in it can actually get more done.
Reports the Problem. Proposes Nothing.
At the September 2025 budget hearing, the Clerk's Office presentation named real, specific strain: staff on extended leave, a records backlog, a 24-48 hour delay on public document access, and — in the presenter's own words — a measurable hit to office morale. None of it was hidden.
None of it came with a plan attached, either. When a commissioner asked directly whether the office had tracked how protection-order case volume shifted after a 2023 legislative change, the answer was: no, that hasn't been tracked. No staffing proposal. No pay proposal. No process changes proposed for any of the problems named.
Read the two together and draw your own conclusion.
More on what I'd do about it under Budget.
Sources: Kitsap Daily News, June 25, 2026 · Kitsap County Clerk's Office FY2026 budget hearing slide, September 17, 2025 · Washington HB 1207 (2025).
Methodology: every figure above is sourced to a named public document — county-published budget materials or independent press coverage — linked inline. Nothing here is estimated or restated from memory. This page is maintained and re-verified on the schedule noted on each card, not published once and forgotten.
This page cost nothing but my own money to build — no PAC, no dark money.