Budget Hearings - Day 2

Day 2 of the Coos County budget meetings proposed cuts if they are unable to raise your taxes:

SHERIFF - Eliminate 10 full time positions in the jail, 7.5 full time positions in patrol/administrative, 1 position in Marine, 1 position in SCINT, 1 position in Animal Control, and 1 position in Dispatch for a total of 21.5 positions eliminated in the Sheriff’s Office

DISTRICT ATTORNEY - Eliminate 2 Deputy DA positions and 1 support staff position

The District attorney warned that these cuts would put them even further behind in prosecuting cases and they would be unable to prosecute B & C misdemeanors. The Sheriff’s Office explained that these cuts would cause them to lose a patrol shift, cut Marine response in half, and keep the jail at its current 50 bed capacity.

With the proposed cuts I mentioned in my last post, this would bring the grand total to 30.5 full time positions cut if they fail to raise taxes this year. According to the Treasurer, each position eliminated would come at a one year cost of approximately $21,000 per full time employee. Based on the proposed layoff of 30.5 positions, it would cost the county approximately $640,500 in unemployment payments.

The graph below shows roughly how much money the county spent (or had available to spend) in the General Fund over the past 20 years. What I see when I look at these numbers is steadily increased spending but at the same time steadily decreased services to taxpayers. Our current "leaders" blame the financial crisis on having less income from timber revenue, but the truth is they have a spending problem and they want more of your hard earned money to cover for their bad habits. The "Public Safety Levy" is a trick to make you think you're voting on whether you support a safer community, but in reality it is a cash grab so they can continue to spend your money without any fiscal responsibility or accountability.

So where does a 15% budget cut put the finances of the county? Does it bring them out of the red?

It would if every department made the full 15% cut, but some departments claim they are unable to make those cuts. For example, the Board of Commissioners refuse to cut their own salary (Rod Taylor asked for a 20% salary cut but was shot down by John Sweet and Bob Main) despite proposing a 20% cut to their assistant's salary. A few other departments only proposed cuts of 10% or 13% and so when everything is added up the budget still comes up short of cash. But they are planning on a tax increase via the "Public Safety" Levy so they don't have to face this fact.