Smaller sheriff's levy will go to voters

Saying he has "heard the voters, loud and clear," Sheriff Greg Brown has trimmed more than 25 percent off the recently defeated sheriff's operating levy request.

In May, voters will be asked to approve a one-year, $6.9 million levy. That's reduced from the $9.4 million per year, three- year levy defeated in the March 12 election.

The reduced levy will not allow Deschutes County to open the new juvenile jail.

The county will not add any more staff at the adult jail, and the inmate population will be "capped," with more criminals released on their own recognizance, Brown told the Deschutes County Commissioners on March 17.

No new deputies will be added to patrol routes.

But the $6.9 million will allow the county to keep existing patrols on the road, even if anti-drug programs such as D.A.R.E. in schools need to be sacrificed.

Brown told the Board of County Commissioners that there was confusion surrounding the larger levy defeated earlier this month. Many voters did not understand why the sheriff's budget would need to increase from $4.85 million in 1994, the amount of the old levy, to a request for $9.4 million.

Brown said that the sheriff's office responded to 27,000 calls in 1994, 47,000 in 1996, and "this year we will hit a minimum of 53,000 calls."

The department now employs about 130 people in all divisions. That's up from about 90 three years ago. The increase includes 12 deputies and 26 new corrections employees.

"We knew when we passed the last levy that hiring was going to be phased in, and we were going to spend savings we did not use in the first two years of the levy in the third," Brown said.

Even so, the department has barely kept up with growth and cannot keep up with other voter mandates to increase jail time, Brown said.

The smaller levy request will allow the department to keep the current staff. However, "there will be not be any new authorized deputy positions. We will not add any new corrections officers. We will have a more difficult time lodging people that are arrested," Brown said.

"There will be no funding for the new juvenile jail. Next year, we will come back and seek funding for that facility, which will not open until 1999.

"We will eliminate the D.A.R.E. program. While we are not real happy about that, our first priority is to handle a call from a home owner that needs assistance. There will be greater delay in issuing concealed weapons permits," Brown said.

If the one-year levy is approved in May, Brown said he would "reach out to various community groups to build consensus toward what kind of public safety services we want to deliver in this county."