As Skagit County commissioners prepare to drop the budget ax on county programs and employees, local officials spoke out Tuesday against proposed cuts to a water-testing lab, the Historical Museum and the Boundary Review Board.

If commissioners don’t hire a lab technician for 2009, then the lab would close its doors to everything except special projects next year, Health Department Director Peter Browning said.

The lab’s one technician left the job months ago, Browning said, and hasn’t been replaced due to a county hiring freeze. Other health department employees have been filling in, conducting the water-sample tests, he said.

The possible closure of the lab has aroused the concern of the Skagit Public Utility District, which runs 1,200 samples a year through the lab to check for coliform bacteria in the water supply of its 70,000 customers.

“In my mind it would be a dereliction of duty to close down that service that goes with protecting that ecology,” PUD Commissioner Robbie Robertson told county commissioners at Tuesday’s budget hearing.

Ed Heidt, water distribution superintendent at the PUD, said if the utility and the county no longer worked together to ensure a safe water supply, both agencies would be forced to scramble to get information from private testers during a water-contamination disaster.

“We’re two public agencies dedicated to safe drinking water. We don’t want to go private,” Heidt said.

Browning agreed that the water lab provided a vital function during emergencies. He asked the commissioners to make the cut only because he believed they wouldn’t support the expense of a new hire, he said.

Browning is meeting with PUD officials this week to discuss the possibility of joint operation of the lab. County commissioners are open to the idea of keeping the lab open with the PUD’s help.

Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt said he appreciated hearing the PUD’s proposal for joint operation of the lab at the hearing.

“This is a time for creativity and partnerships,” Dahlstedt said.

Board members from the Skagit County Historical Society spoke at the hearing against a proposed 34-percent cut to the Historical Museum’s salary budget.

Board members said the cut would result in layoffs of most of the museum’s seven employees and would set the museum back 20 years.

The cut would mean fewer educational programs for children, less upkeep of the museum’s inventory and less help for the public with historical research, board members said.

“The county has an obligation to ensure that the history of Skagit County, through the Skagit County Museum, is preserved and accessible to the public,” board member Darrell Pierson said.

A proposed 12-percent cut to the Boundary Review Board’s budget, including a pay cut for the board’s lone staffer, would compromise the ability of the board to function, members of that board said. The Boundary Review Board will have even more responsibility than usual next year because member Art Shotwell is president of the Washington State Association of Boundary Review Boards.

County officials have proposed cuts across several departments to make up a projected $3.7 million shortfall in 2009. The cuts include more than 36 full-time positions, 12 of which are vacant.

The budget as it stands is built on uncertain ground, county officials admit. The $7 million in sales tax revenue projected for 2009 assumes no decrease from this year, after a 7.8 percent drop from 2007.

If the downward trend in sales tax revenue continues at the same pace, it would cost the county $600,000 — enough to pay 10 full-time employees, county Administrator Tim Holloran said.

The budget also assumes that the employees’ unions will accept $500,000 in concessions, possibly to include unpaid time off or shorter work weeks.

If the unions don’t agree to the concessions, more layoffs will be necessary, Human Resources Director Billie Kadrmas said in an interview.

Holloran said the cuts should be deep enough now so that another round of layoffs isn’t needed next year.

“We don’t want our work force under a cloud where perhaps their jobs are gone in two months,” Holloran said.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the 2009 budget at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 9 in their hearing room at 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon.