Isn't the financial crisis over now?

We've been hearing about this impending financial crisis for a long time. Every time it comes up, people get excited for a little while, but "they" always find the money somewhere. Last summer, the president approved the Iraq spending bill, which contained a number of domestic spending riders including a one year extension of the O&C Safety Net funding. Unfortunately, the extension was only for one year. (For a brief history of what the O&C funding is, and why it matters, see Understanding the County Budget Crisis.)

What happens if we don't come up with some alternative means of funding before next summer? Won't the Federal government extend the Safety Net funding again? Not likely. There is a new proposal in Congress to extend it for another four years, with a 10% reduction each year. That would buy us more time to come up with a plan for alternative funding, so we aren't caught in a sudden emergency when the money runs out next summer. However, the bill is currently stalled in the Agriculture Committee. It's a long-shot that it will pass, but you can help by writing your Congressmen in support of it.

Isn't the WOPR going to solve all our problems?

Probably not. There are three Alternatives proposed in the BLMs Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR). The proposal that would provide the most revenue (Alternative 2) will still provide less revenue than we're receiving today from the O&C Safety Net Funding, while the expenses of running our county continue to rise due to inflation and increased population in the county. Even if Alternative 2 is implemented, it will could take years to re-establish timber production on the lands rededicated to timber management due to lawsuits from the hard core environmental lobby, which has publicly announced that they will challenge any attempt to return any of the O&C lands to timber harvesting.

What if we don't come up with a plan for alternative funding?

If we don't come up with a plan for alternative funding before the extension runs out, we will be in the same position we would have been in last summer if the Iraq spending bill hadn't been approved. We know what this will look like because we had a dry run after the May 15 levy failed, and before the spending bill was approved. The Sheriff's Office's budget was cut to the point where we would not have had enough deputies to respond to any but the most serious, life-threatening calls. There would be no deputies patrolling the county. There would not be enough manpower to take reports on property crimes. Jail accommodations would be cut from 140 beds to 30 beds, and the only deputies remaining on staff would have been those manning the jail. Prisoners would have to be released, because there would be no place to hold them. 

Some residents of Grants Pass believe that this wouldn't affect them because Grants Pass has its own police department. However, the jail, the courts, and the prosecutor's office are maintained by the county. Without funding for Josephine County public safety, the Grants Pass police could still arrest criminals, but there would be no place to hold them and no budget to prosecute them, except for the most serious offenders. This means that, ultimately, the charges would have to be dropped and the criminals would go free to prey on more people inside or outside the city. 70% of the criminals prosecuted in the county courts are for crimes committed in Grants Pass. So, when Josephine County has to cut public safety services, Grants Pass will necessarily be hit the hardest.

Where there is no law enforcement, criminal activity thrives. When crime rates go up in a community, so do insurance rates, and property values go down.

If we don't come up with alternative means of funding before the extension runs out, we may be able to squeeze by with severely reduced services for one additional year, by using up all the money in the contingency fund. But, within a year after the extension runs out, the county will be unable to provide the minimum basic services mandated by the County Charter. When that happens, the county goes bankrupt.

So what if the county goes bankrupt?
 

If the county goes bankrupt, the state will have to take over. The county will cease to exist, and home rule with it. If the state takes over, in the event of a county declaring bankruptcy, the state will have the power to impose new and higher property taxes. And our property taxes will then be paid to the state instead of the county. Nobody wants to pay higher property taxes, but what difference does it make whom we pay them to? The bigger the bureaucracy, the more money slips "between the cracks" and the less of what you pay into it actually comes back to you. That means we'll be paying more money and getting less services. When our local government goes away, we will lose our Sheriff's Office and rely entirely on the Oregon State Patrol for law enforcement in our county. The OSP has already stated that, in this event, they will only respond to serious crimes where a life may be at stake. So we'll just have to make do with more crime. How about other services?  With no County Charter to mandate basic services, what, if any, services are mandated? And what priority will any services to a bankrupt county get in the overall state budget? Without representation from local government, we won't even have a voice in Salem to speak up for us.

What can we do?

Nothing is free. If we want services, the money has to come from somewhere. Different people have different ideas on what sources of revenue are most (or least) acceptable. Different funding options will have different impacts on how much money comes out of your pocket. If you want to have an impact on which means of funding is/are adopted, you need to participate actively in influencing the decision makers.

The Josephine County Action Team (JoCAT) is here to provide resources, infrastructure, and guidelines to support you in making the greatest impact with the time and/or resources you choose to invest in promoting the alternative(s) you believe are most viable. JoCAT is a non-partisan group, and has no set agenda or goal other than promoting permanent reliable funding for basic services, with a focus on public safety.

Our group has identified several possible sources of funding at the federal, state, and local levels. There are multiple possibilities in each category. Some of the options are based on various forms of taxation. Others are focused on alternative means of funding without raising or imposing new taxes.

• Are you in favor of a local sales and/or tourism tax? -- We must convince the Board of County Commissioners that this is a viable option and convince our fellow citizens to vote for it. 
• Would you prefer a state sales tax? -- We must convince our legislators, as well as convincing our fellow citizens to vote for it.
• Do you think the state should allocate money out of the general fund to fund local government services? -- We must convince our legislators.
• Would you prefer a return to sustained yield timber harvesting on the O&C lands? -- We must convince the BLM and Congress.

We don't expect everybody to support every funding option. We believe it's necessary to have as many options on the table as possible, because many of them won't work out. We can't wait to find out the outcome of each one before we start identifying and pursuing alternatives. We need to work in parallel. If every person who's committed to funding public safety in Josephine County gets involved in actively working toward whichever alternatives they support, we have a good chance of achieving our goals.

The Josephine County Action Team can help you understand the various options, and their impacts, and what you can personally do to support whatever option you think is best. To learn more about taxation-based alternatives, visit the Taxation Options page. To learn more about alternative means of funding, visit the Non-Taxation Options page. For background information and links to other sites, see our Information Links.

To learn more about JoCAT, see the About page.