QuickTake:

They estimate a structural deficit of about $5 million in general fund discretionary spending. Options for resolving it are limited, but the county is just beginning to plan for the next budget year, which starts in July. 

Facing an onslaught of financial challenges, Lane County officials are in the early stages of wrestling with a budget plan for the fiscal year that starts in July.

The challenges are wide-reaching without a clear choice. Most county services are tied to state mandates and laws. The county also cannot simply raise property taxes as much as it wants or needs — those increases are capped at 3% annually.

Meanwhile, county leaders are estimating a structural budget deficit of $5 million in the general fund’s discretionary allocations for the next fiscal year. That’s a preliminary figure, but it represents about 7% of the county’s general fund programs, which include public safety, health and welfare, homeless services and many other government functions, like assessor’s office, elections and administration.

“This is a perfect storm for Lane County,” County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky told commissioners in a presentation Tuesday, Dec. 16.

Even though the county’s next budget year won’t begin until July 2026, Mokrohisky said it’s time now to start discussing and planning, hence Tuesday’s discussion. County commissioners didn’t make any decisions Tuesday, nor were they required to do so.

State mandates

The county also must find ways to pay for its share of mandated or shared services from the state — like public safety, behavioral health, court services and supported housing — in the face of what county leaders consider inadequate state funding to cover those services. 

Other external factors impact the county’s budget situation. Decades ago, Lane County’s finances flourished as federal timber revenues flowed into the region. At the time, local leaders kept the county’s property tax rate low. So now, because of the cap on property tax increases, Lane County has a lower permanent property tax rate than other comparable counties in Oregon, including Jackson, Washington, Marion and Clackamas.

Property taxes go to the county’s general fund. (Not every dollar on your property bill goes to the county, though. The county collects about 11 cents of every dollar in property taxes and other agencies get the rest.)

Federal cuts also cast uncertainty across the local budget, which relies on federal funding for services such as Medicaid, which provides health coverage for Oregonians with low or moderate incomes. The county’s health services, for example, treat residents through a network of clinics across the region.

With the county’s structural deficit estimated at 7%, the presentation offered a glimpse of what across-the-board cuts at that rate would look like — though officials stressed the figures were just preliminary estimates and not recommendations — to offer a sense of the scale based on the county’s current budget of $71 million of discretionary general funds. Those funds are primarily property tax revenues not generated by any county department activities — unencumbered money that the county has the flexibility to move between departments.

For public safety, that would be a $3.7 million reduction. For public health and welfare, it would be about $391,000. 

If commissioners decided not to make any public safety funding cuts, reductions would need to be bigger in other areas: Instead of the $391,000 from public health and welfare, it would be $1.5 million.

“There aren’t a lot of good options,” Mokrohisky said. 

On a parallel but separate track, county commissioners are weighing options on how to raise money for public safety funding, which could lead to a 2027 ballot measure.

Meanwhile, county officials are planning steps that include advocacy with state legislators and looking for ways to save money besides cuts, which can include money saved through vacancies, software upgrades and health insurance and pension alternatives.

Commissioners stressed the need for public input and involvement.

“We can’t make decisions in a vacuum because we’ll be criticized for doing the same old thing over and over again, taking tax dollars out of people’s pockets,” Commission Chair David Loveall said. “And people need to be part of the process. And in order to do that, they need to feel part of the pain we’re feeling because all of us are going to have that pain coming out of our paychecks.”

For two decades, Ben Botkin’s journalism career saw him criss-cross the West, a path with stops in rural Idaho, Las Vegas and, now, finally, Lane County. Ben reported on local government and the statehouse in Idaho before he moved to the Bulletin in Bend and covered education in central Oregon.

Then, for four years, he covered Clark County government, which has oversight over the Las Vegas Strip, and served as the lead political reporter during the 2016 election cycle. During that time, Ben wrote about the county’s child welfare agency, law enforcement, the start of Nevada’s medical marijuana industry and homeland security. His reporting sparked the criminal indictments and convictions of three government officials, including a city animal control supervisor convicted of animal cruelty.

He also covered national stories like the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon and the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Since 2018, Ben has reported on Oregon state government, first for the Statesman-Journal in Salem and then for The Lund Report, a Portland-based nonprofit that covers health care. His reporting on gaps in children’s health coverage led to state Medicaid policy changes.

Most recently, Ben worked more than two years at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered criminal justice, health and human services. His work often incorporates the voices of vulnerable Oregonians from all walks of life.

As Lookout’s Politics & Policy Correspondent, Ben digs up the most intriguing and relevant stories about how Lane County decisions impact residents.