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Cowlitz County financial update shows lagged sales tax receipts, planned road capital work rolls into 2025
Summary
County finance staff told commissioners that sales and property tax timing and rolled-over road projects are the main drivers of a widening gap between February revenues and expenses; commissioners asked for follow-up on specific items such as a landfill rent payment and property tax collection rates.
Susie Moon, Cowlitz County finance manager, told the Board of County Commissioners Monday that through February the county’s general fund showed about $6.4 million in revenues and roughly $15.3 million in expenses.
Moon said the County Road special revenue fund had about $1.7 million in revenue and $2.7 million in expenses through February, and the Solid Waste enterprise fund reported roughly $4.5 million in revenue and $3.6 million in expenses. She said sales tax receipts through February totaled about $1.9 million, but noted sales tax is collected on a two-month lag and much of those receipts will be accrued back to 2024.
“Sales tax is collected on a two month lag. So what is revenue from December is received in February,” Moon said, adding that the county will not see its first sales-tax receipts related to 2025 until March and that accrual adjustments could make true 2025 revenue appear lower in April once completed.
The presentation flagged timing effects that distort year-over-year comparisons: Solid Waste’s first-quarter rent payment to the general fund was recorded in February 2025 but was recorded in March 2024, inflating the 2025-to-2024 difference when comparing February-to-February totals. Moon said about $2.2 million of the Solid Waste revenue shown for February is expected to be accrued back to 2024.
Commissioners pressed for clarification on several items. One asked when the apparent deficit would “catch up” with the balance; Moon replied accruals should make the numbers clearer by April. Another asked what the landfill rent payment covered; Moon said she would follow up with Sean, explaining her understanding that the general fund had assumed debt when the county acquired the landfill and that the rent payments reflect that arrangement.
Moon also said property tax receipts are expected to rise because first-half property taxes are not due until April, and that the county’s budgeted County Road capital program increased in 2025 because projects that were delayed in 2024—such as the Cloverdale project in Kalama—were rolled into 2025. She said the County Road 2025 budget is being shown at roughly $50,000,000 compared with about $33,000,000 in 2024, and that the increase reflects anticipated capital projects.
On services and internal billings, Moon reported increases in IT and risk/insurance charges that contributed to higher services spending in 2025 compared with 2024. She said internal billings for the museum fund account for most of that fund’s expenses and that those billings are typically billed once a year.
Why this matters: timing of tax receipts and the rollover of capital projects can make early-year financial snapshots look worse than the underlying activity. Moon committed to follow up on the landfill rent payment and to provide further detail on property-tax collection rates when available.
The finance presentation concluded with Moon saying January and February recording-fee transactions are roughly consistent with 2024 and that the county’s adjusted 2024 sales-tax collections exceeded the amended target by about 1 percent.
