Officials knew cutting $4 million from this year’s Cowlitz County budget would hurt. Tuesday they learned just how much.

In an at-times tense meeting, department heads and elected officials met with county commissioners to report on progress in trimming expenses by 10 percent.

Several said they can’t make the cuts without more details, while some officials argued the cuts shouldn’t be spread uniformly throughout the county.

“Ten percent across the board, I don’t do that at home,” said Prosecuting Attorney Sue Baur. “My cable goes before I cut the food budget. And I’m asking what decisions have you made about the household?”

“We have to cut essential services and we don’t know what you consider essential,” Baur told commissioners. “Ten percent across the board is not equal.”

“It’s consistent,” replied commission Chairman George Raiter. “I don’t know how else to do it.”

“Shaving a little off of everything is not the way to go,” Superior Court Judge James Warme told commissioners. “You’ve given us some discretion, but I think you ought to be looking at some other things.”

The problem, Raiter replied, is cutting only non-mandated areas such as the parks department doesn’t save enough money. That’s because the bulk of the county’s costs are for required services, such as courts and law enforcement.

“Law and justice is 72 percent of the budget,” Raiter said. “We could cut other things first, but it wouldn’t save us that much money. … If we cut all ‘non essential items’ you’d still be looking at about 8 percent cuts. It would still be gut-wrenchingly difficult.”

Closing the county’s historical museum in Kelso, for example, would save about $50,000 — or just 1.2 percent of what’s needed.

“If you can’t cut 10 percent, what can you give us?” asked Commissioner Kathleen Johnson. “We need starting figures to determine what we have to do.”

“And you can get there,” Commissioner Axel Swanson said. “You can volunteer to do it for less, that’s what we did,” he said, referring to the 10 percent pay cut for commissioners and furloughs for staff that eliminated $57,000 from the commissioners’ office budget.

Swanson also warned that not everyone agrees on what is essential.

“I’m hearing ‘shutter the museum’ or ‘lock the gate on the county fair’ or ‘cut back on childhood immunization,’ but maybe the public doesn’t agree,” Swanson said. “Bottom line is there are a lot of services provided to people who don’t break the law. … And everything is incredibly important to that person when they need it.”

Raiter said commissioners can propose their own cuts to departments but figured asking department heads for suggestions first would be better.

Facilities and maintenance director Ron Junker said he appreciated being able to identify his own cuts.

Baur said she had cost-cutting proposals, too, but not ones that reach the 10 percent goal because there are still too many unanswered questions.

Asking employees to take voluntary furloughs and pay more for health insurance, as well as closing county offices one day a week, are under discussion. Some department heads said their employees back those ideas but are waiting for the unions to approve changes to the contracts.

Commissioners told them to include those in budget cut proposals for now, adding that all proposals are drafts at this point. Even with those measures, though, some jobs still will have to be cut to reach the $4 million amount, Raiter warned.

Warme asked about the county issuing employees interest-bearing warrants until times improve, which was done during the Great Depression. It’s still possible to do. However, banks no longer accept the warrants, so it would mean a “nightmare” of extra work for the treasurer’s office, said Treasurer Judy Ainslie.

And there also will be other costs to the cuts, officials said. The county’s Youth in Government Day — where high school students spend a day learning about county operations — doesn’t cost much but could be canceled due to furloughs and other cuts, officials said.

“You need to put that out there, too,” Baur said. “You need to get the public ready for what other cuts are coming.”

Each department will meet individually with the commissioner overseeing it next week for more detailed analysis. Final budget cut proposals are due March 31. Commissioners hope to formally adopt the cuts May 1, though some may not be negotiated or realized until fall, depending on contracts and other obligations.

“The longer we wait, the more we’ll have to cut,” Raiter said. “It’s been a rough go and it’s going to get rougher.”