News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Undersheriff Larry Blanton hopes this spring is the last time he has to hammer in yard signs urging voters to keep the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office running.
Blanton was in Sisters last week to ask the Sisters City Council for an endorsement of a pair of permanent taxing districts to provide the sheriff’s office with a stable funding base for the first time in its history. The proposal won the council’s unanimous endorsement; now he hopes the voters will turn out to make the same choice.
May 16 ballot measures 9-35 and 9-36 create two separate taxing districts. District One is a countywide district that will provide services everyone in the county requires such as the jail, search and rescue and civil process service. The maximum assessment rate would be $1.25 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
The sheriff’s office says that the maximum rate will not be assessed until 2013; the 2007-08 rate (when the districts would take effect) is expected to be 95 cents per $1,000.
District Two covers areas outside municipal areas like Sisters and Black Butte Ranch that either have police services of their own or contract with the sheriff’s office (as Sisters does). That district funds patrols, detective teams, 911 response, traffic safety, animal control and school resource officers, among other services.
The maximum rate would be $1.55 per $1,000; again, that rate is not expected until 2013. The rate for 2007-08 is expected to be $1.40 per $1,000.
The tax districts would replace a system of three-year serial levies (the current levy expires June 30, 2007). The levy system requires that the sheriff’s office go to the voters every three years for new funding. A failure would mean a drastic cutback of sheriff’s office services. It’s a pattern Deschutes County voters have seen over and over.
Blanton said the permanent, stable funding is critical for the sheriff’s office to plan ahead to cope with rising crime in a fast-growing metropolitan area.
“When it comes to quality of life issues and public safety... we’re obligated to do anything and everything we can do to be proactive,” Blanton told The Nugget last week.
The Undersheriff said the sheriff’s office is trying to create a strategic plan to cover the county’s needs through at least 2015. It’s almost impossible to do that when they don’t know how much — if any — funding will be available.
A big part of that strategic plan is an expansion of jail facilities.
“We’re bursting at the seams right now,” Blanton said.
The average daily jail population in Deschutes County jail is 284, Blanton said. The current jail has 228 beds. That means excess population is “matrixed out” — released due to lack of space (based on a “matrix” of data, including the nature of the accused offense).
Blanton said a recent study indicates that “we need 690 beds right now.”
That’s not going to happen. A new jail would cost some $70 million, and even if the sheriff’s office had the cash, which it doesn’t, the completion of such a project would be three years away.
However, Blanton noted, the new tax district would allow the sheriff’s office to budget for staff to run a new facility. Sheriff Les Stiles is hopeful that a county land sale east of Bend might provide funds for the bricks and mortar without tapping the taxpayers.
Instability of funding has had a very bad effect on personnel, Blanton said. in the past five years or so, the sheriff’s office has lost some 20 deputies out of a staff of 90 sworn peace officers, simply because deputies can’t be sure that they’ll have a job when their levy expires.
Many go to Bend Police Department, where pay is higher and they don’t have to worry about the budget rug being pulled out from under them.
“The Chief of Police of Bend, Andy Jordan, came from the sheriff’s office,” Blanton said.
The flight of deputies costs the sheriff’s office trained, valuable personnel — and it’s costly. The commonly used estimate is that it takes $100,000 to fully train and equip a deputy.
Asked to break that number down, Blanton acknowledged that the bill isn’t quite that high in terms of direct costs — salary during academy, uniforms and equipment, etc.
However, when staff time for recruitment and testing is calculated in, along with salary for a deputy on probation and for the training officer who must accompany him or her, the cost does indeed rise to somewhere around $100,000 per deputy.
The tax proposal has some political hurdles. It is complex and can confuse voters. Blanton said one point of confusion he is often asked to clear up is the fact that the tax districts replace the levy only after the levy expires. It’s not a tax in addition to the levy.
Convincing voters of the need for the money takes time and effort; most folks aren’t aware of all the services funded through the sheriff’s office.
And a political anomaly has reared its head: the Ben Westlund independent race for governor.
Legislation passed last year forces registered Democrats or Republicans to choose between signing Westlund’s petition for a place on the November ballot or voting in the May primary election. If they vote, their signatures on the petition are invalidated.
Westlund adamantly insists that he wants local voters to vote in the May election. He’s asking Democrat and Republican voters to change their party affiliation because Independent voters can vote and have their signature validated.
“It’s a concern,” Blanton said. “We’ve heard people expressing some concern about it.”
But Blanton’s biggest concern is voter turnout. Both measures require a better than 50 percent turnout to be valid.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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