County could get big fund boost

By Larry Meyer - Argus Observer
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 10:02 AM PDT

ONTARIO - Malheur County could get more than $600,000 from an appropriation bill approved by the Oregon Legislature just before it adjourned aimed at helping counties hurt by the planned termination of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act.

Oregon counties will divide up more than $50 million in a one-time payout derived from the Oregon Department of Transportation. However, the omnibus bill, which included money for a host of items, carries a caveat.

To acquire the funding, counties must provide a 10.89 percent local match, according to information from the Association of Oregon Counties.

If Malheur County furnishes the match, it will gain a sizable amount of cash according to state Rep. Tom Butler, R-Ontario.

“Malheur County will be getting about $681,000,” Butler said. “Grant County will get around $3 million-plus.”

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Though not all Oregon counties are dependent on timber, all 36 Oregon counties are set to receive a minimum of $400,000 under the last-minute legislation.

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act, or county timber payments, gained a one-year reprieve in late June but not long after the United States Senate shot down a plan to renew a multiyear agenda for the program.

With the loss of the act, many counties face a bleak future of cutbacks in services and layoffs.

According to one state official the funding will be distributed to Oregon counties whether the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act is revived or not.

“The money will flow regardless what happens to the secure schools act,” Art Schlack, transportation policy manager for the Association Oregon Counties, said.

Schlack added the money should arrive to the counties no later than Nov. 1, 2008.

Lawmakers also placed additional funds for county roads in the last-minute appropriation bill. The money will boost the Small Counties Program, which provides cash for roads in counties with smaller populations.

Butler said he viewed the last-minute appropriation bill — also known as the Christmas Tree legislation — with a great deal of caution.

“It just got too spendy,” he said.

Butler said he did have some success in raising the salaries of state judges, whose compensation was the lowest in the nation.

“Legislative compensation had been attached to the judges,” Butler said.

Butler also took issue with a failed Oregon House of Representatives bill Democrats wanted to set up for a government-run family leave insurance program. Although he said the Democrats denied it was a tax hike, Butler insists it was a tax increase. The bill would have deducted 1 cent per hour from a worker’s paycheck and deposited the money with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.

The bill has no assurance the fund would not run out of money, no work had been done to ensure it could be sustained and there was no legislation to establish a reserve fund to protect taxpayers, Butler said.

“It was underfunded,” Butler said, and predicted the amount taken from workers’ checks would have kept increasing.