After nearly an hour of heated debate, the Thurston County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to delay renewal of $15.29 million in homeless services and affordable housing contracts for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
The pause came at the request of the City of Tumwater, which asked for the item to be sent back to the Regional Housing Council (RHC) for further discussion.
“In Tumwater, we have questions about equity and representation, and we have some structural questions about how these critical resources are being allocated,” said Tumwater City Administrator Paul Simmons.
The RHC was established via interlocal agreement in 2021 and is made up of elected officials from its member jurisdictions: Thurston County and the cities of Olympia, Lacey, Yelm and Tumwater.
The RHC sets priorities and makes funding decisions on projects and programs that implement a regional Homeless Crisis Response Plan. As part of that work, the RHC annually recommends a list of homeless service contracts for the Thurston County Board of Commissioners to approve.
Those contracts are intended to cover homeless services across all five RHC member jurisdictions.
This year’s list, which divides $15.29 million amongst 17 organizations through 49 contracts, was finalized and released on May 26.
However, City of Tumwater representatives say the list was finalized while questions from the city remained unanswered.
A transition of leadership within the City of Tumwater — namely the election of a new mayor and the appointment of a first-term Tumwater City Council member to the RHC — contributed to an increase in questions to the RHC during this funding cycle, according to Simmons.
“We're asking because we want to do better. It shouldn't be an issue for a contributing jurisdiction to ask questions like this,” Simmons said.
The City of Tumwater has been working with nonprofit groups and the RHC to get their questions answered, Simmons said, and is asking for more time to continue that work.
“If it feels like this is a problem to ask these questions before we approve these things, then I think there's probably a larger discussion that we need to have about how the RHC is structured and how we approach this work,” Simmons said.
Thurston County Commissioners Carolina Mejia, Tye Menser and Wayne Fournier supported Tumwater’s request to send the contract renewal request back to the RHC for further consideration.
Commissioner Emily Clouse, however, was adamant that the contracts needed to be renewed Tuesday to prevent a lapse in funding for the contracted agencies.
The fiscal year begins July 1, 2026, and Tuesday’s regular Thurston County Board of Commissioners’ meeting was the last scheduled meeting before that date due to the board’s regular summer recess.
“Seventeen organizations would be told that they don't get funding until we decide otherwise, because more information is needed. That is not only unethical, but it is a death sentence for many of our unhoused neighbors,” said Clouse, who is the vice chair and Thurston County representative on the RHC.
Tumwater Mayor Leatta Dahlhoff responded that the Thurston County Board of Commissioners and the RHC were well within their rights to schedule special meetings before July 1 to hear this item.
“I don't want to hold anything up, but I need clarification, because we're seeing things escalate in Tumwater, and we're having to adapt and modify. So, how are the nonprofits getting these funds? How are they contributing to Tumwater? Those are the unanswered questions,” Dahlhoff said.
Clouse also expressed concern that reevaluating the current homeless services contracts backtracks on a commitment the county made last year, when it approved funds for one year instead of two due to its budget deficit.
At the time, the county issued two-year funding awards but only provided funding for one year, with a caveat that the county would approve a second year of funding “if funding was available and performance was satisfactory,” Clouse said.
She later added, “I know there's a lot of new folks now at the table, but this is something that we committed to last year if we had the funds.”
Clouse was the most vocal opponent of delaying approval of the contract renewals, though Grant did join her seatmate in voicing opposition.
“I am concerned about the funding being stopped, and hoping that maybe we could figure this out after the fact,” Grant said.
She added that this year’s funding being the second part of a two-year award added to her concerns.
“We've got people's budgets who have already been committed the funds,” she said.
Mejia chimed in to express concern about Clouse saying this year’s funds were already committed, as that contradicts the RHC’s rules and guidelines.
“There is a process for this,” she said, adding that the interlocal agreement creating the RHC was "explicitly set up” to allow for conversations like the ones Tumwater is asking for to take place, and to allow for contract changes up until the day the contracts are approved.
“If the timeline needs to be changed on when the contracts are coming back in order to allow that, then that’s a conversation that the RHC needs to have,” Mejia said.
Fournier noted that throughout her first term, Clouse has frequently asked for agenda items to be delayed to allow time for her own questions to be answered.
“The board itself has been very accommodating when those things have come up. I just want to give the City of Tumwater that same respect,” Fournier said. “I feel if we do not, we threaten the whole spirit of the regional effort.”
Menser added that he was willing to give Tumwater time to get its questions answered, but would be pushing for the contracts to be approved at the Board of County Commissioners’ next regular meeting, scheduled for July 21, if not at a special meeting sooner.
“The reality is there will be a delay. I’m hoping we can minimize that delay,” Menser said.
Ultimately, Clouse and Grant voted to oppose the motion, and Mejia, Menser and Fournier voted in favor.
When it became apparent that the majority of her seatmates intended to vote in favor of removing approval of the contract renewals from the agenda, Clouse made a note on the record for the general public.
“This Board of County Commissioners, for the public, is getting ready to approve a motion to remove an item that 49 contracts rely on for life or death services when we have the largest encampment in the state of Washington right behind this building full of people who are at risk of death every single day,” Clouse said.
