Illinois Valley News

With mounting federal deficits, and municipalities throughout the United States struggling to balance their budgets, fiscal uncertainty has become the new norm among government agencies.

That is especially the case at the state level, as Gov. Kulongoski has used the allotment authority granted to him under state law to enact across-the-board cuts in response to continued revenue declines. All those factors help raise the question: What is the long-term plan for Josephine County’s budget“

“Plan A“ is a 10-year reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, stated Dwight Ellis, chairman of the Josephine County Board of County Commissioners. If passed into law, that legislation would provide approximately $11 million per year to the county’s coffers, he said.

Efforts to insert the allocation into the president“s 2012 budget has broader support than similar legislation in the past, Ellis noted. And he added that 79 members of Congress, 29 U.S. senators and 18 states have contributed their support.

Ellis said that at the earliest, passage of the legislation would not be decided until February 2011.

Throughout the years, officials have struggled with the problem of how to fund county services that traditionally were paid for by timber receipts. With restrictions on logging caused by a combination of lawsuits and passage of the 1994 Northwest Forest Management Plan, the county“s income has been drastically reduced.

Residents have a long history of rejecting tax increases. Plus, the tax base is limited by federal ownership of most of the land in the county, as well as various state land-use and other restrictions.

A series of citizen task forces have been assembled during the years to address many of those issues. In 1991, a Blue Ribbon Study Committee was formed, consisting of 20 community members and four members of the county Budget Committee.

The Results Group Ltd., a Hood River-based professional management consulting and training firm, was commissioned to produce a report for the county during 2000. There also was a 2002 Criminal Justice Task Force, a 2006 Citizen Financial Review Committee and an April 2008 report compiled by the Josephine County Task Force on Long Term Funding for Public Safety.

The latter group combined documents produced by all the previous committees into a single volume a few inches thick.

Recommendations from the 2008 task force were split into two categories, the first of which involved improving the county“s operational efficiencies. A second set of recommendations centered on ways to increase revenues.

“The lone alternative capable of meeting the funding shortfall by itself is a property taxing district or levy,“ it was stated in the report.

A two-tiered taxing district for public safety was characterized in the report as being the “best choice for an overall replacement“ of federal funds. Voters rejected the formation of such a district in the 2008 general election.

Other recommendations for revenue enhancement included an 11 percent hotel bed tax; a one-time, $10,000 asset buy-in for new dwelling construction; an aggregate mining fee of $1 per ton; a $10 per year fee for every vehicle registered in the county; a 2 percent consumption tax up to $5,000 exempting food and drugs; and a regional consumption tax to be implemented in cooperation with neighboring Jackson County.

Ellis said that he examined 14 different short-term and long-term funding concepts, including the hotel bed tax. But he added that the “state tied our hands on that.“

Approximately 70 percent of the funds raised by a hotel bed tax would be required by law to go towards tourism.

State law also restricted the county vehicle registration fee, Ellis said, and the “asset buy-in“ was limited to a construction excise tax exclusively for school districts to fund capital improvements.

Some of the recommendations put forth by the various committees have been implemented, Ellis said. Most county departments now are self-sufficient, with funds coming either from the state or generated by fee revenue.

The county also has reduced the number of its department heads by about one-third, Ellis said, and entire programs have been spun off. Those include mental health, College Dreams, the library system and services now offered through United Community Action Network.

“We spun off transit, and the state made us take it back,“ Ellis said. “I think we“ve done as much as we can do.“

In the long-term, there are many challenges facing the county as it continues to struggle to shift from a natural resource and timber-based economy. It is difficult for rural counties like Josephine to come up with a funding solution, Ellis explained, because of its very limited manufacturing base.

There also is a large degree of uncertainty surrounding the prospect of increased timber harvests on federally owned lands within the county. A task force assembled by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to study the scuttled Western Oregon Plan Revision suggested years of additional study.

And Ellis points out that the Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlife still has no recovery plan for the “endangered“ spotted owl.

“Everybody is saying it will be three to five years,“ Ellis said. “That isn“t going to help us one bit.“

During recent months, the county has formed a Land Development Advisory Committee, and a Natural Resources Coordinating Committee. Ellis said that although neither of those will be the single solution to the funding issue, “all of these things help contribute.“

At this point, the county“s five-year budget projection includes the assumption of a $10.5 million, five-year public safety levy being passed by voters “in time for use beginning in 2012-13.“

It also states that “the general fund is assumed to begin receiving timber receipts from the federal government in 2010-11.“

Rosemary DeLashmutt, the county“s chief financial officer, said that those figures are merely informational and not binding in any way. She added that such five-year budget projections are required by the county charter.

Ellis insists that he would only seek another tax levy in a worse-case scenario, if all else fails. In the meantime, he said he wants to make sure he“s done all he can to help the county fund its services.

Despite that optimism, DeLashmutt said that the county must be realistic when planning for its future.

“We all hope the feds come through, but we can“t always plan on that,“ she concluded.

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