Sean C. Morgan
Linn County Sheriff’s Office will close its two wings of state prisoners and parole and probation services this year.
Linn County has forwarded notification to the state that it will no longer participate in the community corrections program, Sheriff Dave Burright said. The program started in the mid-1990s under Senate Bill 1145.
The law made counties responsible for prisoners serving sentences of a year or less and state parole and probation. Under the provision, the state was to provide funding for the services.
Oregon counties contend that the state has not been paying the full cost of those services, Sheriff Burright said. The law also says that if the state’s funding falls below a baseline, counties can opt out of the program.
When Measure 30 failed in February, Sheriff Burright said, another bill was already in place to cut funding automatically. That included community corrections funding, placing the state in default.
“Our county does not want to do this,” Sheriff Burright said. “We think the program works, and it’s the right thing to do.”
But the Sheriff’s Office is having funding problems elsewhere too.
Its law enforcement levy is facing the loss of $1 million in Measure Five (1990) compression, revenues lost to the $10 per $1,000 cap on general government property taxes. The Sheriff’s Office had anticipated losing $400,000 to compression, but other levies increasing and new levies added to the tax burden, including an Albany public safety levy, have boosted that total. The Albany levy directly cost the Sheriff’s Office $250,000 in compression.
“Those things combined placed the county in a position where the county had no other choice,” Sheriff Burright said. The Board of Commissioners signed a letter last week that will take effect on May 1, beginning a 180-day period where the community corrections program will transition to the state.
In the meantime, the Sheriff’s Office will close its first 48-bed pod by the end of May. The second will close by the end of October. At the end of October, The Sheriff’s Office will lay off its parole and probation staff. That leaves the Sheriff’s Office operating 134 beds outside the community corrections program.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the jail yet,” Sheriff Burright said. The Sheriff’s Office will work with the Department of Corrections (DOC) in the coming weeks and months to figure that out.
The DOC could choose to leave that area unused or could hire its own staff to run the facility, Sheriff Burright said. The DOC also could contract with the Sheriff’s Office to operate the facility. Both the wings scheduled to close are owned by the state on Linn County property at Linn County Jail.
The 134 remaining beds are used for prisoners awaiting trial or serving sentences for misdemeanors.
“There will be some people released early,” Sheriff Burright said. Some will not be sent to jail at all. Sheriff Burright has met with the presiding judge and will meet with the district attorney to discuss options.
The closure could affect holding and prisoners awaiting trial as well, Sheriff Burright said. The Sheriff’s Office has used the two state wings for holding.
If the state does not reopen the beds, the Sheriff’s Office may be able to rent the beds from the state, Sheriff Burright said.
With the closure, the Sheriff’s Office will lay off a net 26.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) parole and probation officers and 21 FTE in jail staffing. Beyond those, three employees will be reassigned with savings from the program cut. Two will be added to narcotics and one to the dispatch center.
At this point, it remains up to the state to determine how it will operate parole and probation.