A Matter of Priorities

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
published in the Central Oregonian, February 2004
http://www.centraloregonian.com

Funding public safety is an obvious priority, but we what happens when our priorities outstrip our resources?

The commencement of the annual county budget process has turned talk around the Courthouse this month to a question of priorities. More than once, I’ve heard the statement, “We just need to set our priorities and stick with them.”

In principle, I think that’s a very good idea. The problem is, consensus of opinion seems to be limited to the fact that we ought to have priorities, not what they ought to be. Therein lies one of the trickiest questions facing local government at the moment.

Nowhere does the question play out more vividly than over the issue of what ought to be done about funding for public safety.

I think most people would agree this ought to be a key priority for any government. After all, public safety is a key reason governments were formed in the first place. We all want the certainty that bad guys will be locked up and that our persons and possessions are secure. Thus, we are willing to see a significant portion of our tax dollars invested in jail beds and law enforcement functions of the county.

Recognizing this fact, Crook County invests the lion’s share of its discretionary resources in law enforcement. Just over 80 percent of the county property tax dollars are spent on patrol, prosecution and incarceration. The sheriff’s office, the jail, the juvenile department and the district attorney’s office depend heavily on property taxes.

And that dependence has been growing. In the last three years the number of jail beds available to courts and law enforcement has increased from 24 to 41, with a corresponding increase in the budget of more than 75 percent. Likewise, the budget for the sheriff’s office and jail operations, have grown 45.1 percent and 68.5 percent respectively during the same time period. In large measure this has been because the current county government is committed to maintaining an effective law enforcement presence even as federal and state governments have scaled back on revenue sharing . In addition, Crook County, unlike many other counties of the state, has not yielded to the temptation to “go easy” on crime, particularly in regard to its willingness to prosecute aggressively and sanction parole and probation offenders with additional jail time.

Still, even while we have scrambled to make sure that citizens are receiving an adequate level of protection, we are fast reaching the point where costs are going to outrun the ability of the county to pay. The double-digit increases of the past few years in law-enforcement costs stand in stark contrast to the 4-5 percent annual growth the county experiences in its general fund. One statistic puts it in perspective very well: Since 2000, Crook County has added almost $1 million ($994,754) in costs associated with operating the offices of the sheriff, jail, juvenile dept. and district attorney’s office. During the same time period, revenue from property tax increased about $840,0561, leaving the county $150,000 behind where it was four three year ago before, and that’s before figuring in the cost of increased wages and salaries, retirement and benefits for all other General Fund departments.

How have we managed to do this? In part, the county has cannibalized the rest of its budget in order to sustain an effective level of public safety. Nothing better illustrates this than the fact that the county workforce has shrunk by 8 percent fewer (16 people) in just one year. The county has also used some assets, particularly through elimination of its 10-year backlog of foreclosed properties, to fund operations. Fees have also helped generate revenues as have creative solutions such as instituting a program to capture administrative fees from grants and creatively thinking about ways to use federal and state revenue sources to pay for certain programs. These measures have ensured the ability of the county to offer stable and continuous services to all its residents in a very difficult economic period.

So far, this has been an effective financial strategy, but frankly, we are running out of options, and the county and its citizen may have to make some very difficult choices it the coming fiscal year. Last year, the City of Prineville advised the County that it intends to cancel the county’s longstanding lease of eight of the jail beds city hall in order to make room for its police station remodel. For citizens of both Prineville and Crook County, the cost of replacing these beds in Jefferson County is an estimated $134,000. To put that in perspective, the county expects its property tax collections to grow by about 4 percent next year or $151,000. So if the jail beds are replaced, that leaves $17,000 in new money which has to pay for everything from employees raises, health and property insurance premium hikes, more books at library, support for the fairgrounds, services to veterans and other programs important to various constituencies within the county.

Considering that a modest cost of living adjustment of 3 percent for county employees would cost $157,000, that’s not much. Making things worse, traditional sources of state and federal support continue to decline, even while statutory mandates, court orders, and union contracts limit the county’s flexibility.

In the months ahead, the County Court and county budget committee are going to have to make some very difficult choices. Here are some of the hypothetical questions the county faces: Should we make do with less jail beds in order to keep buying books for the library? Is it more important to keep the fairgrounds open year-round or to incarcerate more juvenile offenders? Should we ask a deputy to drive a sheriff’s vehicle with over 200,000 miles on it or keep rates down at the landfill?

These are tough calls. And my own survey of the community says that there are as many opinions as there are options. As your elected representatives, we the Court have no choice but to make many of these decisions, difficult though they may be. As always, we will be listening carefully to your thoughts as we go along. And there is always the possibility we may ask you to help us by referring some of these questions to you, the voters.
One thing is certain. All of us are entitled only to the level of government we’re willing to pay for. The question is, how much do you want to buy today?