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The morning after voters defeated a property tax levy, Curry County’s finance director said the budget committee and Board of Commissioners have to figure out how to cut 41 percent from the general fund by June 15.

Curry County currently has a $3.8 million general fund deficit, Keina Wolf told the budget committee Wednesday.

Commissioner Jay Trost put it another way: General fund departments, including the district attorney, sheriff and county clerk offices, have requested roughly $9.5 million for their operations. Curry County only has about $5.8 million in resources.

“We have to fit 9-and-a-half million into 5-and-a-half budgets,” he said. “Essentially it’s 41 percent. The general fund areas are pretty much all of our mandated services.”

Trost pointed to a statement Wolf made in her presentation that the Curry County sheriff transferred $500,000 from his special projects budget into his civil services and patrol budget, but these are one-time dollars.

“If they’re used there will be more reductions next year,” Trost said. “So we have to navigate this.”

More than 71 percent of Curry County voters who cast a ballot in Oregon’s May 21 primary rejected the county’s proposed property tax levy for law enforcement, according to unofficial results posted at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Staff in the county’s elections office are still counting ballots, a representative told the Wild Rivers Outpost. People have 21 days to correct any missing signatures or other information, she said.

At the Budget Committee meeting, Commissioner Brad Alcorn said the county’s on the edge of the financial cliff he’s been describing in the weeks leading up to the election. Fees will likely increase as a result of the vote, but it’ll be a drop in the budget. Alcorn said he was looking for some short-term solutions since June 15 is right around the corner.

Alcorn and his colleagues must adopt a balanced budget at their June 20 meeting so county staff can submit it to the Oregon Department of Revenue by July 1, Wolf said. If they miss that deadline, the county could get audited and could lose any federal and state funding it receives, she said.

During the meeting, Capt. Phil McDonald, who works in the sheriff’s office, asked about transferring money from other sources, such as the county’s road reserve fund, to support the sheriff’s office. He pointed out that positions have already been cut. Further cuts will compromise public safety and his colleagues’ safety, he said.

“If we’re looking at cutting after doing a transfer from road reserves that’s one thing,” McDonald said. “If we’re looking at doing a cut without a transfer from the road reserve, that’s something else.”

Speaking for Sheriff John Ward, who couldn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting, McDonald urged the budget committee to use whatever funds were available to support law enforcement and public safety.
Curry County currently has $17.8 million in its road reserve fund, Wolf said.

In response to Alcorn, who asked how long it would take for Curry County to go bankrupt if it used those dollars, Wolf said three to five years.

Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald added that while an emergency allowance from the state governor allows counties to use the road reserve fund as a stop gap measure, it’s not intended for long-term use.

Other potential long-term solutions might be charging an administration fee to the 42 special districts that operate within the county, Alcorn said. He said he wants to do a deep dive to find out if there’s a lawful way the county could do that.

Another long-term solution would be to be able to exploit the county’s natural resources, Alcorn said. He said he wanted to step up advocating for the county’s rights to its timber and other resources.

“We need fight even harder than we have been because of the position we’re in,” he said. “But that’s not going to be done by June 16.”

Budget committee member Nic McNair wanted information about the number of full-time equivalent employees county departments had both currently and in the future. He  also wanted to know the departments and services that are mandated versus those that aren’t. This could also include departments that are primarily funded through state dollars, he said.

McNair also asked to see what a 41 percent budget cut would look like for county services.

McNair’s colleague on the budget committee, Dan Brattain, said it would also be important to know what kind of law enforcement coverage citizens are currently receiving and what it would look like with a 41 percent cut.

“Law enforcement is critically important to everybody in the community,” he said. “Metrics are what drives any business in government and/or in private and I think digging into some of the metrics of coverage would be really important.”

Alcorn said he’d prepare a detailed list of the coverage the sheriff’s office provides and where a 41 percent cut would come from. This includes the number of calls for service, response times, staffing levels and crime rates, he said.

Two weeks before the election, Alcorn told Curry County residents that a 24-7 sheriff’s patrol required $8 million. However, he said, the county only receives about $2.165 million in property taxes for its general fund.

The five-year property tax levy of $2.23 per $1,000 of assessed property value would have allowed the sheriff to hire the six more deputies his office needs to operate 24-7. At a town hall meeting before the election, District Attorney Josh Spansail said he would lose one of his two deputy district attorneys, one of his two office staff members and a legal assistant.

In other Curry County races, Ward won re-election, prevailing over challengers Jeremy Krohn and Thomas Eslinger, according to the Oregon Secretary of State office.

Jay Trost will keep his Position 3 Seat on the Curry County Board of Commissioners, while Patrick Hollinger unseated incumbent John Herzog, according to the unofficial results.

The Board of Commissioners and the Budget Committee will hold another meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday at 94235 Moore Street in Gold Beach. Meetings are streamed live on YouTube.

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