Speech: Prineville Lunch and Learn
A Speech entitled, "Things You Ought To Know
About Crook County Government" delivered by
Crook County Judge Scott R. Cooper to a
Central Oregon Community College "Lunch and Learn" seminar
at Crook County Library in Prineville, Oregon, May 2004
Why do we have a County Court and how does it differ from the governments in other Oregon Counties?
There are essentially three forms of county government in Oregon: The original County Court system created by the first constitution, the board of commissioners system and the various systems desinged by home rule system. Unless voters choose otherwise, the county government structure defaults to the county court system. The county court system is one of the oldest forms of representative government in the western world. It was first imported from England to the colonies, particularly Massachusetts, Virginia and the Carolinas in the 17th century, before the founding of the nation. Its key features are the division of authority among numerous elected, rather than appointed officials, who presumably will serve as checks and balances on each other and the concentration of the power of the purse in a seperate elected legislative body, which through financial means can guide the system and check the behavior of any elected official. The center of the system is the county judge, who serves as both the chief executive, the head of the legislative body and sometimes as a judicial officer. (In this state, most judicial authority has been removed from the office, excepting for probate and juvenile court responsibility. Crook County relinquished those remaining responsibilities to the state in 1993.) The system was designed to address the relative shortage of education and expertise in government functions that existed in colonial America. It works best in small communities, which can't afford full time, professional managers. As counties grow, they tend to switch to the board of commissioners role, where the commissioners provide policy oversight and a professional administrator is hired to supervise day to day activities. Counties in Oregon also have the option of adopting a home-rule system, which allows them to design a county government any way they want, with as few or as many elected officials as they want, configured in a variety of ways. In Oregon at present, there are 9 county court systems in use, 18 board of commissioners systems and 9 home rule charters.
Should Crook County consider a different form of government?
I don’t think so. I like the County Court system. The elected officials are accountable directly to the people. Because the chair doesn’t rotate, there is continuity in administration for at least four years. And frankly, elected officials work for less than paid professionals, so there are cost savings as well.
How many employees does the county have?
195 working in 23 separate departments. By county standards in Oregon, we are an “in between” county in terms of size. However, it is worth noting that the total county workforce is 8 percent smaller than it was just a year ago, although no services have been cut.
Considering the size of county government, how can one full time county judge and three commissioners stay on top of it?
Honestly, we can’t and we would be naïve to think that we could. But we have great department heads, experienced elected officials and a full set of boards and commissions which oversee the numerous functions of the county. The latter are extremely important. I think we have something like 250 volunteers working for the county on the planning commission, mental health advisory council, commission on children and families, Fair Board, library board, search and rescue, etc. We could not do our job for you without these really dedicated people, and as a result we spend a lot of time looking for just the right candidate to plug into each spot. Believe it or not, we do not just plug the first person who applies into a county volunteer function. We try to find an appropriate match, taking into account factors such as skill sets of the applicant, skills needed on particular boards, gender and ethnic balance of boards and generally whether there is a broad segment of community perspective represented on particular boards.
With one city and one county, why don’t we have a consolidated county-city government?
· The Oregon Constitution prohibits governmental mergers in communities of less than 300,000 residents
· Citizens of Crook County have a government which has relatively little debt. Citizens of Prineville carry the burden of repaying rather significant debt, mostly associated with bonding used to construct city infrastructure. Presumably in a consolidated government, that debt would be transferred to county citizens as well.
How are my property taxes calculated?
That could take all day by itself. Depending on where you live, there are 25 separate taxing zones in Crook County. Residents within these zones have are taxed based on the districts from which they receive service and what they have voted to tax themselves. For example, residents in the extreme southeast, pay taxes to the Brothers School District, not the Crook County School District. Residents in Prineville, Powell Butte and Juniper Canyon pay for rural fire protection, while residents in Post and Paulina do not. The taxing rate varies from $11.47 to $17.53 per thousand of assessed value. Regardless of what rate you pay, Crook County receives $3.87 per thousand.
Property taxes in Oregon are capped in several ways. First, new property taxes can only be imposed at a Primary or General Election held every May and November in even-numbered years. Taxes must pass by a majority and a majority of electors must cast a ballot. (By the way, many people believe that failure to vote is the same as a “no” vote. That is not correct. Failure to vote only means you didn’t vote, and might impact whether a majority is received or not.)
In addition to requiring a vote on new taxes, Oregon also has a property tax limitation. The taxes you pay cannot go up by more than 3 percent per year unless you sell, build something new or give up your farm deferral or otherwise change the condition of your property. The assessor will continue to mark up your Real Market Value on the tax roll regardless of what your taxes are doing, but your taxes themselves are limited to an annual increase of 3 percent or less.
Finally, the Oregon tax system requires that all taxes dedicate to general operation of government—as opposed to bonded debt for capital construction--be limited to not more than $10 per thousand of assessed valuation. An additional $5 per thousand can be assessed to support schools. If either the $10 cap or the $5 cap are exceeded for any given household, all taxes paid by that household are proportionately reduced to the level of the cap.
This system severely restricts the ability of local governments to grow, but provides excellent assurances to taxpayers that their taxes will remain reasonable, even if the county government allows a destination resort to be built next door.
How are my property tax dollars used by county government?
· Almost all your tax dollars are consumed paying for public safety. 82 percent of property tax dollars fund just five departments: sheriff, jail, district attorney, juvenile department and victims advocate.
· Crook County’s annual budget is about $45 million, of which $20 million is Road Fund principal which we don’t touch. Of the remaining $25 million, only about $4 million is property tax. The rest comes from fees, federal and state revenue sharing, grants and carryover.
Why doesn’t the county build its own jail and save the cost of bed rental in Jefferson County?
· The county has its own jail. There are 22 beds in City Hall, 8 of which will be lost when the city remodels the city hall and moves into the east wing of the jail later this year. The county also rents 25 additional beds in Jefferson County at a bargain basement price of just over half a million annually. This would provide enough revenue to service the debt on our own jail if we chose to construct one. However, it doesn’t provide enough revenue to operate the resulting facility. That would cost an estimated $1.2 million annually and require a 30 percent hike in property taxes. The County Court believes this is unacceptable to taxpayers and won’t forward a proposal to voters until such time as beds are no longer economically available in Jefferson County.
So with no property taxes available for roads, how is it that Crook County has such a big Road Fund?
· The county’s Road Fund was built up over years by depositing the proceeds of timber severance tax into the Road Fund and never spending it. The decision to put receipts into the Road Fund was not a measure of prudence on the part of the county government. It’s a matter of state law that severance taxes can only be used for highway construction. Before the timber industry collapsed for good in the early 1990s, the Road Fund built to about $20 million, and the county has maintained that balance living off the interest.
How does the county determine which roads to pave?
· The county accepts roads into the county system when they are built initially to county road standards. But compliance with the road standards is expensive, and many developers build housing which is non-compliant in order to reduce the sale price of housing. These developers usually create a homeowners association or road district to maintain their roads. The County has a standing deal for residents living on non-county roads. You bring your roads up to county standards at your expense and the county will take them over. This policy ensures that residents who received the benefit of a reduced purchase price for their home and who now want the additional value added by a paved access road do not receive that benefit courtesy of the rest of us!
· Roads within the city limits are the responsibility of the City of Prineville. Crook County does not maintain these roads, but contributes $200,000 annually to the city from the Road Fund in recognition of the fact that many county residents drive over city streets.
Where is the money coming from to pave Millican Road?
· Notwithstanding the above policy, the county will from time to time make investments in major roads which connect other transportation routes. Millican Road is such a highway. The funds to pay for Millican Road were provided entirely by the federal government which is currently giving Crook County $2.4 million annually for road construction. The total cost of the Millican Road project is $3.7 million, so the federal money coming in will pay for the road in less than two years, plus Deschutes County is contributing $750,000 in cash and in-kind services.
· You may have read about a $2 million grant from Congress which was recently awarded to Crook County to make safety improvements to Millican Road. What you didn’t read is that Crook County had no idea this money was coming. It was simply a gift from the congressional delegation which believes this road has value. There are many strings attached to the money and it must be spent in coordination with Deschutes County and ODOT, so I can’t tell you today how we will spend it, except to note that at least some of it will be used to follow through with an ODOT recommendation that the road be fenced, at least on the Crook County side.
How did Crook County manage to make it through the last several years without experiencing the fiscal problem facing other counties and the state government?
· First, Crook County did experience severe financial pain along with other governments. We just didn’t whine about it, and we didn’t reduce services or hours. We did, however, trim staff, control materials and services purchases, forego major capital purchases, delayed hiring new sheriff’s deputies, reduced compensation and benefits to employees and ate into our reserve funds.
· Beyond that Crook County was blessed throughout the budget crisis with a lot more flexibility than other other governments. Our employees, with the exception of sheriff’s deputies, are not in PERS, so we did not have to bear the extraordinary cost of funding PERS retirements when the market crashed. Instead, we continued to make our regular 401K contribution to the employee retirement plan without interruption.
· Most of the Crook County workforce also works without a union contract—the exceptions being the Sheriff’s office and Road Dept. In fact, I’m very proud of the fact that two years ago, one of our bargaining units—the landfill employees—decertified and dropped the union. I can’t name another county or city where that has happened. Not being locked into union contracts for the most part allowed us to work with our employees through difficult times to take care of them, preserve jobs and still keep the budget in balance. If we had been locked into rigid contracts, we would have had no choice except to cut hours or reduce personnel.
· A third area where Crook County did a better than average job of controlling costs was in managing our healthcare expenses. The county pays 90 percent of the premium for employees and their families to receive healthcare coverage. When healthcare costs began rising, the county immediately began working with its agent, Chet Petersen, and its carrier, Lifewise, to redesign the healthcare plan to keep it affordable. We raised deductibles, raised copays, tiered the drug program and launched an aggressive education campaign to reduce utilization. We managed to kepe our healthcare increases below 10 percent, and this year we have budgeted a 0 percent increase when the healthcare index is rising 14 percent.
So is this kind of management fueling the union movement recently announced?
Actually, the union movement is going on in the state courts which share the courthouse with county employees. The union movement was fueled by reductions in hours and wages and issues surrounding working conditions imposed by the State of Oregon. As far as I know, there is no union talk going on within the ranks of county employees. The last effort to unionize in 2001 failed for lack of interest.
HOT TOPICS
Where does Crook County stand on the issue of same sex marriage?
· Crook County follows the law. Current law does not allow same sex marriage. Multnomah County (and Benton and Jefferson Counties initially) argued that the prohibition on same sex marriage violates the Constitution, and that a Constitutionally invalid law has no force. Crook County believes that is a decision best left to the Courts, the Legislature and the People. As a county, we don’t make determinations regarding constitutionality of laws. To do so would be a recipe for chaos. If the law ever changes, however, we will certainly follow the new law, whatever it might be, until told not to.
Is there going to be a destination resort in Powell Butte?
· Crook County issued a 61 page decision approving the resort and imposing a number of conditions intended to limit its impact. Opponents say they intend to appeal and have until 2 weeks from today to do so. The grounds for appeal are limited to the arguments presented before the County Court. The process from here is really out of the county’s hands. I do believe that the decision to approve the resort will eventually be upheld. The county’s destination resort siting ordinance on which this application is based is the most restrictive and environmentally protective in the state. The current appeal may slow down the process, but I think that a resort will eventually be built with positive social, economic and financial consequences for Crook County and Powell Butte alike. That said, I think this is an important decision because depending on the outcome it will send a strong signal about whether Crook County is open to economic diversification any new economic opportunities.
Why did the County approve the Motocross Track near Prineville?
The Crook County Court was a surprised as any citizen to discover that Crook County’s zoning ordinances allow a motocross track in the area above the reservoir. However the language of the ordinance is ambiguous and simply provides that recreation will be allowed in the zone, if its impacts can be properly mitigated. Ultimately, it became clear through the public hearing process that a public agency could do this project without even seeking permission. Only private developers were required to seek a permit. That played a big part in our final decision. Ultimately, the Court felt that regardless of our personal feelings about this proposal—and I have a lot of concern about it—we had no choice except to approve the application in front of us imposing as many restrictive conditions as possible. The alternative was to chicken out and let the state overrule us. But I don’t personally believe we are elected to take the cowardly way out, which essentially is what we were urged to do.
With all the talk about the elimination of the Oregon Health Plan, where does that leave Crook County residents?
Obviously, losing health benefits was devastating to a portion of our population. Fortunately, the Ochoco Community Clinic has picked up much of the slack, as has the hospital which had considerably fewer resources to provide indigent care. One of the things that many counties experienced in the wake of OHP cuts was a shift from the OHP standard population consisting of those with slightly higher incomes and less disability to the OHP plus population, the poorest and most disabled citizens. In Crook County that didn’t materialize. We have actually seen a reduction in OHP Plus numbers. That can only mean one of a couple things; either the low income population is finding alternative ways to receive healthcare or the low-income population is shrinking or we’re simply not registering eligible people through the local DHS office. We have an investigation underway to try to determine the answer, whatever it
About Crook County Government" delivered by
Crook County Judge Scott R. Cooper to a
Central Oregon Community College "Lunch and Learn" seminar
at Crook County Library in Prineville, Oregon, May 2004
Why do we have a County Court and how does it differ from the governments in other Oregon Counties?
There are essentially three forms of county government in Oregon: The original County Court system created by the first constitution, the board of commissioners system and the various systems desinged by home rule system. Unless voters choose otherwise, the county government structure defaults to the county court system. The county court system is one of the oldest forms of representative government in the western world. It was first imported from England to the colonies, particularly Massachusetts, Virginia and the Carolinas in the 17th century, before the founding of the nation. Its key features are the division of authority among numerous elected, rather than appointed officials, who presumably will serve as checks and balances on each other and the concentration of the power of the purse in a seperate elected legislative body, which through financial means can guide the system and check the behavior of any elected official. The center of the system is the county judge, who serves as both the chief executive, the head of the legislative body and sometimes as a judicial officer. (In this state, most judicial authority has been removed from the office, excepting for probate and juvenile court responsibility. Crook County relinquished those remaining responsibilities to the state in 1993.) The system was designed to address the relative shortage of education and expertise in government functions that existed in colonial America. It works best in small communities, which can't afford full time, professional managers. As counties grow, they tend to switch to the board of commissioners role, where the commissioners provide policy oversight and a professional administrator is hired to supervise day to day activities. Counties in Oregon also have the option of adopting a home-rule system, which allows them to design a county government any way they want, with as few or as many elected officials as they want, configured in a variety of ways. In Oregon at present, there are 9 county court systems in use, 18 board of commissioners systems and 9 home rule charters.
Should Crook County consider a different form of government?
I don’t think so. I like the County Court system. The elected officials are accountable directly to the people. Because the chair doesn’t rotate, there is continuity in administration for at least four years. And frankly, elected officials work for less than paid professionals, so there are cost savings as well.
How many employees does the county have?
195 working in 23 separate departments. By county standards in Oregon, we are an “in between” county in terms of size. However, it is worth noting that the total county workforce is 8 percent smaller than it was just a year ago, although no services have been cut.
Considering the size of county government, how can one full time county judge and three commissioners stay on top of it?
Honestly, we can’t and we would be naïve to think that we could. But we have great department heads, experienced elected officials and a full set of boards and commissions which oversee the numerous functions of the county. The latter are extremely important. I think we have something like 250 volunteers working for the county on the planning commission, mental health advisory council, commission on children and families, Fair Board, library board, search and rescue, etc. We could not do our job for you without these really dedicated people, and as a result we spend a lot of time looking for just the right candidate to plug into each spot. Believe it or not, we do not just plug the first person who applies into a county volunteer function. We try to find an appropriate match, taking into account factors such as skill sets of the applicant, skills needed on particular boards, gender and ethnic balance of boards and generally whether there is a broad segment of community perspective represented on particular boards.
With one city and one county, why don’t we have a consolidated county-city government?
· The Oregon Constitution prohibits governmental mergers in communities of less than 300,000 residents
· Citizens of Crook County have a government which has relatively little debt. Citizens of Prineville carry the burden of repaying rather significant debt, mostly associated with bonding used to construct city infrastructure. Presumably in a consolidated government, that debt would be transferred to county citizens as well.
How are my property taxes calculated?
That could take all day by itself. Depending on where you live, there are 25 separate taxing zones in Crook County. Residents within these zones have are taxed based on the districts from which they receive service and what they have voted to tax themselves. For example, residents in the extreme southeast, pay taxes to the Brothers School District, not the Crook County School District. Residents in Prineville, Powell Butte and Juniper Canyon pay for rural fire protection, while residents in Post and Paulina do not. The taxing rate varies from $11.47 to $17.53 per thousand of assessed value. Regardless of what rate you pay, Crook County receives $3.87 per thousand.
Property taxes in Oregon are capped in several ways. First, new property taxes can only be imposed at a Primary or General Election held every May and November in even-numbered years. Taxes must pass by a majority and a majority of electors must cast a ballot. (By the way, many people believe that failure to vote is the same as a “no” vote. That is not correct. Failure to vote only means you didn’t vote, and might impact whether a majority is received or not.)
In addition to requiring a vote on new taxes, Oregon also has a property tax limitation. The taxes you pay cannot go up by more than 3 percent per year unless you sell, build something new or give up your farm deferral or otherwise change the condition of your property. The assessor will continue to mark up your Real Market Value on the tax roll regardless of what your taxes are doing, but your taxes themselves are limited to an annual increase of 3 percent or less.
Finally, the Oregon tax system requires that all taxes dedicate to general operation of government—as opposed to bonded debt for capital construction--be limited to not more than $10 per thousand of assessed valuation. An additional $5 per thousand can be assessed to support schools. If either the $10 cap or the $5 cap are exceeded for any given household, all taxes paid by that household are proportionately reduced to the level of the cap.
This system severely restricts the ability of local governments to grow, but provides excellent assurances to taxpayers that their taxes will remain reasonable, even if the county government allows a destination resort to be built next door.
How are my property tax dollars used by county government?
· Almost all your tax dollars are consumed paying for public safety. 82 percent of property tax dollars fund just five departments: sheriff, jail, district attorney, juvenile department and victims advocate.
· Crook County’s annual budget is about $45 million, of which $20 million is Road Fund principal which we don’t touch. Of the remaining $25 million, only about $4 million is property tax. The rest comes from fees, federal and state revenue sharing, grants and carryover.
Why doesn’t the county build its own jail and save the cost of bed rental in Jefferson County?
· The county has its own jail. There are 22 beds in City Hall, 8 of which will be lost when the city remodels the city hall and moves into the east wing of the jail later this year. The county also rents 25 additional beds in Jefferson County at a bargain basement price of just over half a million annually. This would provide enough revenue to service the debt on our own jail if we chose to construct one. However, it doesn’t provide enough revenue to operate the resulting facility. That would cost an estimated $1.2 million annually and require a 30 percent hike in property taxes. The County Court believes this is unacceptable to taxpayers and won’t forward a proposal to voters until such time as beds are no longer economically available in Jefferson County.
So with no property taxes available for roads, how is it that Crook County has such a big Road Fund?
· The county’s Road Fund was built up over years by depositing the proceeds of timber severance tax into the Road Fund and never spending it. The decision to put receipts into the Road Fund was not a measure of prudence on the part of the county government. It’s a matter of state law that severance taxes can only be used for highway construction. Before the timber industry collapsed for good in the early 1990s, the Road Fund built to about $20 million, and the county has maintained that balance living off the interest.
How does the county determine which roads to pave?
· The county accepts roads into the county system when they are built initially to county road standards. But compliance with the road standards is expensive, and many developers build housing which is non-compliant in order to reduce the sale price of housing. These developers usually create a homeowners association or road district to maintain their roads. The County has a standing deal for residents living on non-county roads. You bring your roads up to county standards at your expense and the county will take them over. This policy ensures that residents who received the benefit of a reduced purchase price for their home and who now want the additional value added by a paved access road do not receive that benefit courtesy of the rest of us!
· Roads within the city limits are the responsibility of the City of Prineville. Crook County does not maintain these roads, but contributes $200,000 annually to the city from the Road Fund in recognition of the fact that many county residents drive over city streets.
Where is the money coming from to pave Millican Road?
· Notwithstanding the above policy, the county will from time to time make investments in major roads which connect other transportation routes. Millican Road is such a highway. The funds to pay for Millican Road were provided entirely by the federal government which is currently giving Crook County $2.4 million annually for road construction. The total cost of the Millican Road project is $3.7 million, so the federal money coming in will pay for the road in less than two years, plus Deschutes County is contributing $750,000 in cash and in-kind services.
· You may have read about a $2 million grant from Congress which was recently awarded to Crook County to make safety improvements to Millican Road. What you didn’t read is that Crook County had no idea this money was coming. It was simply a gift from the congressional delegation which believes this road has value. There are many strings attached to the money and it must be spent in coordination with Deschutes County and ODOT, so I can’t tell you today how we will spend it, except to note that at least some of it will be used to follow through with an ODOT recommendation that the road be fenced, at least on the Crook County side.
How did Crook County manage to make it through the last several years without experiencing the fiscal problem facing other counties and the state government?
· First, Crook County did experience severe financial pain along with other governments. We just didn’t whine about it, and we didn’t reduce services or hours. We did, however, trim staff, control materials and services purchases, forego major capital purchases, delayed hiring new sheriff’s deputies, reduced compensation and benefits to employees and ate into our reserve funds.
· Beyond that Crook County was blessed throughout the budget crisis with a lot more flexibility than other other governments. Our employees, with the exception of sheriff’s deputies, are not in PERS, so we did not have to bear the extraordinary cost of funding PERS retirements when the market crashed. Instead, we continued to make our regular 401K contribution to the employee retirement plan without interruption.
· Most of the Crook County workforce also works without a union contract—the exceptions being the Sheriff’s office and Road Dept. In fact, I’m very proud of the fact that two years ago, one of our bargaining units—the landfill employees—decertified and dropped the union. I can’t name another county or city where that has happened. Not being locked into union contracts for the most part allowed us to work with our employees through difficult times to take care of them, preserve jobs and still keep the budget in balance. If we had been locked into rigid contracts, we would have had no choice except to cut hours or reduce personnel.
· A third area where Crook County did a better than average job of controlling costs was in managing our healthcare expenses. The county pays 90 percent of the premium for employees and their families to receive healthcare coverage. When healthcare costs began rising, the county immediately began working with its agent, Chet Petersen, and its carrier, Lifewise, to redesign the healthcare plan to keep it affordable. We raised deductibles, raised copays, tiered the drug program and launched an aggressive education campaign to reduce utilization. We managed to kepe our healthcare increases below 10 percent, and this year we have budgeted a 0 percent increase when the healthcare index is rising 14 percent.
So is this kind of management fueling the union movement recently announced?
Actually, the union movement is going on in the state courts which share the courthouse with county employees. The union movement was fueled by reductions in hours and wages and issues surrounding working conditions imposed by the State of Oregon. As far as I know, there is no union talk going on within the ranks of county employees. The last effort to unionize in 2001 failed for lack of interest.
HOT TOPICS
Where does Crook County stand on the issue of same sex marriage?
· Crook County follows the law. Current law does not allow same sex marriage. Multnomah County (and Benton and Jefferson Counties initially) argued that the prohibition on same sex marriage violates the Constitution, and that a Constitutionally invalid law has no force. Crook County believes that is a decision best left to the Courts, the Legislature and the People. As a county, we don’t make determinations regarding constitutionality of laws. To do so would be a recipe for chaos. If the law ever changes, however, we will certainly follow the new law, whatever it might be, until told not to.
Is there going to be a destination resort in Powell Butte?
· Crook County issued a 61 page decision approving the resort and imposing a number of conditions intended to limit its impact. Opponents say they intend to appeal and have until 2 weeks from today to do so. The grounds for appeal are limited to the arguments presented before the County Court. The process from here is really out of the county’s hands. I do believe that the decision to approve the resort will eventually be upheld. The county’s destination resort siting ordinance on which this application is based is the most restrictive and environmentally protective in the state. The current appeal may slow down the process, but I think that a resort will eventually be built with positive social, economic and financial consequences for Crook County and Powell Butte alike. That said, I think this is an important decision because depending on the outcome it will send a strong signal about whether Crook County is open to economic diversification any new economic opportunities.
Why did the County approve the Motocross Track near Prineville?
The Crook County Court was a surprised as any citizen to discover that Crook County’s zoning ordinances allow a motocross track in the area above the reservoir. However the language of the ordinance is ambiguous and simply provides that recreation will be allowed in the zone, if its impacts can be properly mitigated. Ultimately, it became clear through the public hearing process that a public agency could do this project without even seeking permission. Only private developers were required to seek a permit. That played a big part in our final decision. Ultimately, the Court felt that regardless of our personal feelings about this proposal—and I have a lot of concern about it—we had no choice except to approve the application in front of us imposing as many restrictive conditions as possible. The alternative was to chicken out and let the state overrule us. But I don’t personally believe we are elected to take the cowardly way out, which essentially is what we were urged to do.
With all the talk about the elimination of the Oregon Health Plan, where does that leave Crook County residents?
Obviously, losing health benefits was devastating to a portion of our population. Fortunately, the Ochoco Community Clinic has picked up much of the slack, as has the hospital which had considerably fewer resources to provide indigent care. One of the things that many counties experienced in the wake of OHP cuts was a shift from the OHP standard population consisting of those with slightly higher incomes and less disability to the OHP plus population, the poorest and most disabled citizens. In Crook County that didn’t materialize. We have actually seen a reduction in OHP Plus numbers. That can only mean one of a couple things; either the low income population is finding alternative ways to receive healthcare or the low-income population is shrinking or we’re simply not registering eligible people through the local DHS office. We have an investigation underway to try to determine the answer, whatever it
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