Curry County “We’re cut to the bone.”

The Curry County Board of Commissioners met last week to try and figure out how to keep the wheels of government turning a little while longer.  It was a long painful meeting.  Since the voters voted down a property tax increase to fund law enforcement, their first priority was to fund that. 

Curry County will borrow $950,000 from its road department to help pay for sheriff’s deputies and fire suppression at the jail, commissioners decided Tuesday.

To highlight the painful decisions, they reluctantly aggreed to allocate $100,000 to install a fire suppression system in the 50 year old jail.  One of the citizens attending objected, noting that "It hasn't burned in 50 years".

Commissioners also debated — and eventually approved — allocating $100,000 from the road fund to install a fire suppression system in the jail. The state fire marshal has “given us a pass” for the past 15 years, Bishop said, but his last letter was more terse and implied the county needs to bring that part of the operations to code.

After that, there was nothing left for other County functions.

Many departments no longer exist under the auspices of the county, having been spun off into nonprofit agencies in the past two years. Among them are Home Health and Hospice, Curry Community Health, the animal shelter, mental health and addictions.

Next year, Healthy Start will receive no funding, nor will liquor law enforcement, planning, building or environmental offices.

And the county will have less than $95,000 to do desperately-needed repairs on buildings.

Commissioners expressed their thanks to the budget committee, whose members noted their struggles with the budget.

“I hate doing it this way,” Scaffo said. “I hate eating up those reserve funds. I hate taking road funds for a second year in a row. But the alternative is worse.”

“There wasn’t anywhere else to cut,” Smith said. “We’re cut to the bone.” 

The Oregon State legislature is making plans to take over the county administration and possibly levy an emergency State Income Tax on the county residents, anticipating that the county will soon be unable to fund the most basic functions.