Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Linn County is asking voters to renew its law enforcement levy on Nov. 7.
The existing levy will expire on June 30. The new levy would take effect on July 1.
This levy has been used by Linn County Sheriff’s Office since 1982, Sheriff Tim Mueller said.
“It’s not a new money measure,” he said. “It’s the same old one they’ve had for 20-some years anyway. It funds the Sheriff’s Office, part of the district attorney’s office and the Juvenile Department. That’s why they call it the Linn County Law Levy.”
The current tax rate is $2.04 per $1,000 of valuation. The renewal increases the levy to $2.34. It will generate about $15.9 million the first year of the levy, 2007-08, and about $66.7 million over the life of the levy.
“We enjoy a great amount of support from the folks out there that we serve, and we’re going to continue to do that and provide the best service for the tax dollar that we can,” Mueller said. “It costs money to do it, and I think the taxpayers are well served by the tax dollars they spend in this county.”
The Sheriff’s Office gets about 76 percent of the funding from the levy, Mueller said. It funds 85 positions at the Sheriff’s Office, 14 positions in the district attorney’s office and 18 positions at the Juvenile Detention Center.
The levy funds about 45 percent of Sheriff’s Office operations, about 10 percent of the district attorney’s and 14 percent of the Juvenile Department’s.
The county also gets timber payments made to counties by the federal government to offset the loss of timber tax revenues caused by the decline of the timber industry. Funds have been approved for the next fiscal year, but the future of the program remains in question.
“(The levy increase) maintains current levels of service,” Mueller said. “We’re kind of in an uncertain future with that timber money. Any county that uses O&C funds is in the same boat. If that money goes away, we’ll be able to maintain positions. We don’t have a bunch of positions funded by Title III money for that reason.”
Two forest deputies and the work crew are funded using that money, Mueller said, but if the revenue stream dries up, governments will be looking for ways to tighten their belts, potentially leading to cuts at the Sheriff’s Office too.
“We don’t buy a lot of toys,” Mueller said. “Our business is people.”
The Sheriff’s Office staffs the county jail, dispatch services and police services, he said. “It’s expensive to employ people. The good news is our patrol division is one short of being full strength. Of course, we haven’t been at full strength since 1994.”
The Sheriff’s Office is a full-service law enforcement agency with a dive team, search and rescue, a mounted posse and more.
“We do everything,” Mueller said. “We’re proud to do it. We’ve actually put more deputies in east county. We’ve had more people assigned out of east county to cover busy areas.”
The levy keeps these services going, he said.
“It’s the cost of keeping good people, dedicated people around.”
The inmate work crew is another way the Sheriff’s Office does this by making sure that “there’s always room in the inn for the bad guy,” Mueller said. The inmate work crew is the overflow valve for the jail. It allows the Sheriff’s Office to put low-risk offenders serving such sentences as 10 days for failure to comply to work on county projects.
It also is a funding stream, he said. If the Sheriff’s Office did not have the crew, “we’d be asking for more general fund or levy dollars. They definitely earn their keep. That’s for sure.”
The Sheriff’s Office will continue to provide the same service that it has in the past.
When someone calls, “you will talk to a human being, and a human being will respond to you,” Mueller said. “We will not go to an automated system … a kind of trend in law enforcement.”
Related to the levy is an ongoing issue that cuts short funding for the Sheriff’s Office, Sweet Home Police Department and the Sweet Home Public Library.
In Sweet Home, all three are the first taxes to be reduced under 1990’s Measure Five property tax limits, and any time any of the levies increase, it deepens the “compression” issue.
Potential solutions may include the creation of split tax rates between cities and rural areas, or the formation of a law enforcement district, much like the way Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District combined city and rural fire and ambulance services.
Mueller said he did not know “that there’s been any discussion” about a split rate and that Deschutes County has had some problems with its new split-rate system.
“The one thing people need to remember, the cities of Linn County aren’t big enough you’ll spend most of your time in the cities,” Mueller said. “You’re going to get out into the county and have to use those patrol services.”
Although the hunter may live in the city, it will be the Sheriff’s Office responding when someone has broken into a hunter’s pickup out in the woods.
Right now, it’s as if all of the public safety agencies are competing for the same money, Mueller said, and “there’s got to be something out there that we can do differently.”
Mueller said he is committed to looking at this issue and “not waiting until six months before the next levy,” he said. The Legislature is expected to look at legislation to help form police districts next session, and he is “looking forward to seeing how things turn out.”