Lane County’s budget proposal avoids deep cuts to personnel

Lane County’s proposed budget for its next fiscal year has a critical goal: buying time to avoid deeper cuts to essential services like public safety and rural patrol services. 

The county’s proposed 448-page budget, released this week, comes amid a strained financial time for the county and other local governments across Oregon. Inflation remains high as the county’s next fiscal year, which starts July 1, approaches. The federal government is chipping away at programs that help provide funding for food, housing and health care for vulnerable Oregonians, making county residents more likely to rely upon shelters and other local services. 

State funding remains a challenge as well. The county could see a drop of up to $2.3 million in its share of state funding to help pay for local shelters and support services. The final amount of the cutback still could change, though, and officials are still working through the details of what the impacts will be.

Meanwhile, Lane County continues to deal with the same budget realities: Timber revenues have declined from their heyday since the 1980s and under state law, county property taxes are capped at a 3% annual increase in assessments.

Here’s a look at some of the budget highlights and what’s ahead:

Budget primer 

First, some basics.

Lane County’s budget is complex, with 34 total funds for different purposes like parks and open spaces, waste management, technology replacement and health and human services. Those funds sometimes get specialized revenue sources, such as grants or county fees. For example, the county’s solid waste disposal fund relies largely upon tipping fees that haulers pay when they drop waste at the county’s Short Mountain Landfill. 

For all accounts, the county’s proposed fiscal year 2026-27 budget is $1.2 billion, which is a 1.7% decrease from the current fiscal year. The proposed general fund budget is $176.2 million, a 9% decrease from the current fiscal year. 

County property tax revenues, licenses and permits and state revenues are part of the general fund, which pays for operational expenses such as public safety and general government services like assessments, elections, and public health and welfare.

The county’s proposed budget reduces its full-time equivalent positions by 15. The positions are in areas like community development, general government, public health and roads. Nine of the 15 positions are filled; the others are vacant. Of the nine, one employee is retiring in June and another was in a limited duration position that was scheduled to end this fiscal year. 

For the remaining employees, “It’s too early to know the exact outcome, assuming the budget is adopted as proposed,” Devon Ashbridge, a county spokesperson said in an email. Due to collective bargaining and bumping rights, a staffer in a position slated for reduction could move to a different program or department, Ashbridge said.

The reduction is less than 1% of the county’s budget positions. The county will have a workforce of 1,916 budgeted full-time equivalent positions after the cut. 

When planning the budget, the county accounts for an average of 5% employee vacancy rate across county departments, which reflects the county’s historical turnover trends. That step allows the county to budget based on anticipated costs rather than make cuts on the front end and have a larger fund balance at the end of the fiscal year. 

The county’s 10-member budget committee, which includes all five commissioners, will hear a budget overview presentation at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, and then take public comments at 7 p.m. There are further budget committee work sessions planned for May 12, 13 and 14 before deliberations and a budget committee vote on May 20. Commissioners will vote on the budget in June.

An eroding safety net

Like the other 35 counties in Oregon, Lane County is largely at the mercy of state and federal lawmakers. About 60% of the county’s budget comes from state and federal dollars, with the remaining 40% coming from local taxes and fees. 

As a result, county officials are closely watching federal cuts that will only worsen in the coming year. The cuts will hit programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provide health care and food assistance to low- and moderate-income households. 

The erosion of social safety-net programs make vulnerable Oregonians, including Lane County residents, more likely to end up needing services like shelters or a trip to a hospital emergency department.

“It’s a big challenge that as a community, we need to continue to put a put a spotlight on and talk about how, particularly with federal funding going away, how we can work with the state and work with local partners to identify resources,” County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky said in an interview with Lookout Eugene-Springfield. 

The county’s been able to make a variety of cost-saving measures, such as focusing on employee health and wellness to reduce high-cost claims, finding ways for state dollars to cover certain pension costs, and centralizing services to save money internally, the county’s budget document said. 

Public safety 

While a few positions are targeted, the county’s budget proposal avoids trimming any deputy patrol positions in the Lane County Sheriff’s Office. 

The county’s public safety budget, which includes patrol deputies, corrections staffers and other support staff in the sheriff’s office, has 308 budgeted positions. Of those, 30 deputies are assigned to patrol duties responding to 911 calls throughout unincorporated Lane County.

The staffing levels mean that on any given shift, three deputies and a sergeant are on patrol duty to respond to 911 calls. Officials say that’s not nearly enough, given Lane County’s broad geographic reach from the coast to the Cascades.

It can lead to long waits for help as deputies travel from one side of the county to the other each shift. 

The county’s budget proposal calls for using $4.8 million during the next two years to preserve rural patrols without cuts as the county looks for long-term solutions. The county will use transient lodging tax reserves for that purpose — allowed because lawmakers passed legislation this year giving counties more latitude in how that money is spent. 

Traditionally, that money goes toward tourism-related projects, which the county will continue to do with other transient lodging tax funds. 

Essentially, the move gives the county time as officials plan outreach to the community about potential public safety proposals for more funding. Those could include a payroll tax proposal or a special taxing district that would go to voters in 2027. But before that can happen, officials plan to gauge the appetite of the public for that step.

“Even though we’re vastly under-resourced for our geographic area and population we serve, I am happy that we are going to basically at least be status quo while we try to figure out what planning we can do,” Sheriff Carl Wilkerson said in an interview with Lookout. 

Without the transient lodging tax funding, the sheriff’s office would be looking at staffing reductions, such as going back to two patrol deputies on a shift instead of three, he said. 

Solid waste challenges ahead 

Not every department is spared cuts. The county’s solid waste disposal fee, which runs the landfill, recycling program and 15 transfer stations, faces a budget shortfall.

County officials say that this comes as Waste Connections-owned Sanipac hauls its waste to its own landfill near Medford, bypassing Lane County’s landfill. 

The county’s looking at making cuts of about $3 million to the solid waste fund. That will mean closing at least three of the county’s transfer stations, which serve rural communities and offer an alternative to illegal dumping. To bridge the gap, the county may have to make fee increases to remaining transfer stations and eliminate funding in other programs.

It’s unclear if those cuts will move forward. The county has offered Sanipac a five-year deal with a reduced tipping fee to return to the county’s landfill, which would bridge that gap and keep costs for customers down. The county’s offering to match what the company pays to use the facility near Medford. 

For now, the county is waiting to hear back from the company, Mokrohisky said. The county has reached out to Sanipac and its parent company, the Texas-based Waste Connections.