Facing a projected $14.5-million deficit in the budget over the next five years, the Tillamook County budget committee held the first of six monthly meetings to discuss possible solutions on July 10.
Tillamook County Commissioner Doug Olson shared a list of more than 50 potential revenue-boosting or cost-cutting options to address the shortfalls that are being caused, in part, by cuts to the county’s state forest timber revenues.
The meeting started with Olson and the other commissioners welcoming the assembled group to the meeting and thanking them for their participation. Commissioner Mary Faith Bell said that the commissioners knew that addressing the financial difficulties might be a difficult process for county employees and that she wanted to include those who would be affected in the conversations leading up to any changes.
Tillamook County Treasurer Shawn Blanchard then discussed the budgetary situation facing the county. For the budget year that began on July 1, the county was forced to cover a gap of more than $3 million in funding by drawing down the revenue stabilization fund and allowing the county’s beginning fund balance to drop.
Going forward, those revenue shortfalls are expected to continue, in a projected range between $2 million and $3.6 million over the next five years, according to Blanchard. Neither the revenue stabilization fund nor the beginning fund balance will be able to bridge those gaps, which led Olson to call for the monthly meetings to address the issue before next budget season.
After Blanchard’s introduction, Olson launched into discussion of a list containing more than 50 ideas to either increase revenues or cut costs, compiled from suggestions made by commissioners and county staff.
On the revenue growth side of the equation, many of the suggestions revolved around increasing or adding taxes, but most of those changes would require voter approval.
A prime example of these possibilities is a potential increase of the county’s transient lodging tax (TLT) rate, which is already in the early stages of moving towards the May 2025 ballot for voter approval. Currently, that taxation rate stands at 10%, with commissioners planning to ask voters to approve an increase to 15%, which would bring an additional million dollars into county coffers annually.
Another idea mentioned was to lobby the state government to adjust the statutory division of TLT revenues from its current split, which sees 70% of funds earmarked for tourism projects while the remaining 30% is available for any purpose.
However, any proposed change to that division is likely to draw opposition from the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, according to Olson. He said that he had discussed the issue with Tillamook’s state legislators and that Representative Cyrus Javadi had said he was considering sponsoring a bill to study the issue in next year’s legislative session.
Other options related to taxing in support of increased revenue included introducing a prepared food tax, establishing a county road service district and supporting tax, seeking a serial levy to support the sheriff’s office or general fund, introducing a gas tax, a vacant home tax or community safety sales tax, or establishing an enhanced sheriff’s patrol district.
Any of those options would require voter approval and two attempts to establish an enhanced sheriff’s patrol district in the county failed previously. Tillamook County Sheriff Josh Brown has also expressed hesitancy about relying on a levy, which would require voter reapproval every five years, to support his office’s operations.
Another bucket of ideas centered on adding or increasing county fees. Among those ideas was the possibility of increasing fees at county parks, charging a fee for electrical vehicle charging stations, assessing fairgoers a public safety fee and increasing the fees charged to cities that use the county’s justice court.
The possibility of adding a fee to Tillamook Peoples’ Utility District for customers in the unincorporated county was also floated. Cities currently charge up to 7% of a customer’s bill for use of their rights of way and the county could elect to implement a similar fee, with a 1% fee projected to generate $500,000 annually.
There were also several ideas to increase revenues that did not include fees or taxes, including claiming a percentage of the county fair’s revenues, selling carbon credits against unlogged timber in the Tillamook State Forest, eliminating a 3% discount offered to early property taxpayers, bringing the parks department back under the county government umbrella and forming a tourism improvement district, which would give tourist businesses the opportunity to voluntarily collect a fee from clients for a specified use.
On the flip side, there were ideas to cut county expenses, although they generally seemed less palatable to the committee and assembled department leaders.
The most drastic of these suggestions was reducing county employee hours, either by moving to a four-day work week or six-hour workdays, either of which would save the county more than $2 million. Commissioners and staff both said they worried about any such move’s impact on the county’s ability to recruit and retain employees and did not seem eager to pursue the idea further. Reducing employees to a four-day work week with ten-hour workdays as a means of reducing utility costs at the courthouse was also mentioned.
Other ideas brought up included delaying hiring for open positions, deferring maintenance projects, eliminating or combining positions, combining departments, transitioning away from a county-sponsored retirement plan, reviewing the county’s insurance, restructuring employees’ benefits packages, restricting work travel and assessing the county’s use of contract services.
Reevaluating the services that the county offers against a list of the services that it is required to offer by statute was also mentioned, with marriage licensing and passport processing noted as examples of services that could potentially be cut.
After finishing a review of the list, the group took a break and returned to sort the list of ideas into groups of ideas that could be accomplished in the short- and long-terms.
At the committee’s next meeting in August, they will have more in-depth discussions about which ideas they will move forward with pursuing.
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