currycountysheriff.jpg
A sheriff's deputy in Curry County, which has slashed most of its patrols, is seen in this 2011 photo.
(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian/2008 file photo)
Oregon's hard-hit rural counties are facing yet another big financial challenge after Congress last week refused to provide continued aid to timber-dependent counties.
In Josephine County, which has already cut most sheriff's patrols, officials say the loss of federal money will complicate their struggles to keep the jail open.
In Lane County, commissioners are moving toward asking voters to approve a $35-a-year vehicle registration fee, in part to fill a gap left by the lack of federal funding.
And in Douglas County, officials have to ponder some combination of depleting their reserves or cutting into their public safety and road programs.
Oregon members of Congress say they will mount a full-court press to get the federal aid passed in the first few months of the new session that starts next year.
Click on counties to see how much each will lose next year if Congress doesn't act. Counties are shaded darker green to show larger losses.
But the uncertainty over federal aid once again highlights the shaky economics of much of rural Oregon.
"We're continuing to see the rural counties struggle," said Greg Wolf, Gov. John Kitzhaber's intergovernmental affairs director. "I really feel like it's a deteriorating situation."
Declining timber harvests in federal forests around the state have been changing the economics of most rural counties for more than two decades.
Counties once depended heavily on their cut of federal timber harvest receipts to pay for schools, roads, jails and other services.
Starting in 2000, Congress threw the counties a lifeline in the form of a new aid program called Secure Rural Schools. Since then, it has pumped more than $2.5 billion into county and school coffers, helping make up for some of their losses.
Click on counties to see how much each will lose next year if Congress doesn't act. Counties are shaded darker green to show bigger losses as a percentage of the county's budget.
But the program was seen as temporary, and members of the delegation have struggled to keep the aid flowing. Annual payments dropped from a high of more than $250 million in 2006 to about $107 million last year, after which it expired.
Last week, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden tried to insert language reviving the program into the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill needed to fund the government.
House Republican leaders rejected the amendment. Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, a member of the House leadership, said he obtained House Speaker John Boehner's vow to move a county aid package through the House early next year – along with more controversial legislation aimed at increasing federal forest harvests.
Back in Oregon, officials from the rural counties say they hope the new Republican majority in Congress will lead to a breakthrough on legislation that will allow more logging in the woods, which they say is the long-term solution to restoring financial stability.
In the meantime, they're starting to put together budgets for their next fiscal year – which starts in July – without knowing what, if anything, they will get from the federal government.
Headwaters Economics, a Bozeman, Mont.-based non-profit that analyzes rural economies in the West, estimated that Oregon counties would have a net loss of about $73 million next year if the aid is not removed.
Despite its name, most of the money from Secure Rural Schools does not flow to education, particularly in Oregon, but to the counties. Based on Headwaters numbers, the loss of the federal program would cost Oregon schools about $14 million. And that loss would be shared equally by schools around the state because of the way Oregon equalizes K-12 funding.
In dollar terms, Douglas County would be the biggest loser, with a cut of about $15.7 million. Next in line is Lane County, with a loss of about $12.7 million.
In percentage terms, Headwaters calculates that some of the state's smallest counties would have the biggest percentage losses.
Eastern Oregon's Grant County would have a reduction of about 18 percent while Lake County would see a cut of about 15 percent.
"The choices just keep getting more difficult," said Rep. Tim Freeman, R-Roseburg, who will take office as a Douglas County commissioner on Jan. 5. "We're headed to the cliff."
Freeman said the county has tried to preserve its most vital services – which he defined as roads and public safety – by shedding some programs and slowly drawing down its reserves.
But he said the county now faces the prospect of cutting into the "bone" of its core services or depleting the last of its reserves in the next year few years.
Josephine County has long since gone over the cliff. The county cut sheriff's patrols to the point that it received national publicity for being unable to respond to some violent crimes.
"Even now we're trying to figure out now how to keep the jail open," said Cherryl Walker, chairwoman of the Josephine County Board of Commissioners. "That is where all our Secure Rural Schools money would go."
Voters in Josephine County – and neighboring Curry County – have turned down a series of proposals to raise their property taxes, which are the lowest in the state. Critics say they should pick up more of the load of funding their own local government, but local officials say it's difficult to persuade voters to raise taxes when they are so economically hard-pressed.
The Legislature passed a law in 2013 allowing the governor to impose local taxes without the approval of voters if local commissioners agree. Under the legislation, the state would also kick in money to help counties.
No county commission has asked the governor to use the new law and Wolf said it's too early to say whether any county would resort to it in the next year or two.
Lane County Commissioner Sid Leiken attended a Eugene meeting Friday of the Association of O&C Counties. Those 18 western Oregon counties get many of the biggest federal aid payments because their federal forests – managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management – operate under a law that gives them a larger share of harvest receipts.
Leiken said the local officials, who have more than once seen the Oregon delegation find a way to keep the federal aid flowing, were generally confident the lawmakers would succeed again.
Even so, he said, the amount of the aid continues to shrink, forcing the county to seriously consider the vehicle fee to maintain the road system in the Connecticut-sized county.
-- Jeff Mapes