Council supports sheriff's levy

A vote on a new sheriff's levy will determine whether deputies keep working. photo by Jim Cornelius

Deschutes County Sheriff Les Stiles is pushing hard to pass a three-year levy which will increase taxes for city and rural residents.

Sheriff Stiles is speaking to civic and neighborhood groups and plans to go door to door at the end of April. His message: If the levy is not passed, the department will lose $12 million and lay off at least 112 employees. Already, the staff has been reduced to 171 full-time employees from 199 and the budget to $17.8 million from $21 million, Stiles said.

The City of Sisters assured Stiles that it will actively back him in his campaign. The Sisters City Council voted unanimously Thursday, February 26, to pass a resolution emphasizing its support of the three-year levy as the "best possible short-term solution" and also urged the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners to seek a long-term funding solution for sheriff services.

The proposed tax rate, which will appear on ballots in May, will be 82 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation (AV) in the cities of Bend, Redmond and Sisters and the service districts of Black Butte Ranch and Sunriver. It will be $1.60 per $1,000 AV in the remaining rural areas.

City residents currently pay 78 cents per $1,000 AV and rural residents pay $1.12 per $1,000 AV.

If the levy is passed, the sheriff's department will operate on an $18.1 million budget. If it fails, it will operate on $6.1 million, lay off 112 employees and the maximum prison population will drop to 108 from 228, Stiles said.

"That is not something I want to do or something I am threatening to do," Stiles told The Nugget.

"It is a fact that it would be a consequence. Some people think politicians talk out of two sides of the mouth, but I can assure you, promise you, this will happen. There is no other money, no hidden pots, no one to come in and bail us out."

The campaign for this levy is coming on the heels of the defeat of the sheriff's proposal for a permanent tax district. In November, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 to deny the sheriff's request to put a permanent tax district on the May ballot.

The commissioners said they felt the rates were too high for rural residents, who would have paid a maximum of $2.04 per $1,000 AV over 10 years for sheriff's services.

The rate for city residents would have dropped to 68 cents per $1,000 in the first year.

The City of Sisters also supported that proposal, partly because councilors said the rural increase made up for the additional $2.11 per AV city residents paid for contracted sheriff's services for 2003 to 2004.

In the resolution passed Thursday, the city urged the county commissioners to "appoint a blue ribbon committee to study and recommend a fair, equitable and stable long-term funding solution for sheriff services."

Meanwhile, Stiles plans to knock on doors and pour himself into a tenacious campaign.

"If we really believe in this, we will knock on 10 doors and get them to talk to 10 more people," Stiles said. "We're going to knock on every door in Deschutes County."

Stiles told the city council he anticipates the biggest challenge will be convincing approximate 55,000 rural residents to vote for the tax increase.

He said they need to realize that city residents currently pay more than rural residents because of the additional taxes for in-city police services.

Some of those services also reach rural residents.

"The problem is rural residents will not see that," Stiles said. "They will say, 'Hey, I'm paying $1.12 and now I have to pay more.' But it's still a deal."

Property owners in the rural areas of the county receive enhanced sheriff's services including sheriff's patrols, 911 response, crime investigation and community policing, according to a sheriff's office press release.

The current levy will expire on June 30. If the new levy passes, it will be the first increase in the levy amount in six years, Stiles said.