County, D.A. work out deal on funding matrix
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Sunday, June 1, 2008 3:13 AM PDT
VALE - After several weeks of offers and counter-offers, the Malheur County Court and District Attorney Dan Norris reached an agreement Wednesday on how money from the Oregon Department of Justice will be divided up for use to cover at least some of the costs of handling juvenile dependency cases.
According to the county, the Oregon Department of Justice is responsible for handling cases involving child neglect but is not able to provide attorneys to counties in the far reaches of the state.
In response, the Oregon Department of Justice offers funds to local D.A. offices to handle the dependency cases at the county level. Malheur County is scheduled to receive $23,508 from the Oregon Department of Justice to handle juvenile dependency cases.
Under the agreement with the court, Norris — who ran unopposed in the May primary and was just re-elected to another term — is to receive $10,000 from the state to supplement his salary, and the deputy district attorney in his office that handles juvenile dependency cases will become a full-time employee. The rest of the funding will go into the District Attorney’s Case Management System. The funds will be carried over into the next year to be added to any new money from the state for dependency cases. However, that money is not guaranteed beyond the current biennium, and the county’s position is that it will not replace any funding the state drops. Initially, the county proposed that Norris receive $3,000 of the state money, $3,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year and $7,000 for next year. The county also proposed boosting the deputy district attorney who handles juvenile dependency cases to fulltime with no county obligation past June 2009.
In correspondence and talking directly with the court, Norris said at one point he wanted $15,000 of the Oregon Justice Department funding through the end of June 2009.
“$5,000 this fiscal year and $10,000 the next fiscal year are within the range that should be paid even if I were not assuming additional workload,” Norris said, referring to what is being done in other counties.
“In most of the counties they pay a supplement because the state salary is inadequate,” Norris said, citing practice in Union and Umatilla counties. “This is the one and only chance that I’m going to have, and I’m not going to be D.A. forever, to make sure that I have enough of a budget in my office to get my replacement adequately compensated, because I’m not going to be here long enough to get a huge amount of benefit from this.”
There have been proposals and counter-proposals, between the two sides, but Norris has continued to request the $10,000 for the next fiscal year and the juvenile deputy D.A. be raised to 40 hours per week.
Malheur County Administrator Janice Belnap said his request cannot be sustained for more than one year, without taking money from the deputy D.A. office, and reiterated that the supplement would only be there if the state money keeps coming.
In his latest proposal, Norris asked that $9,100 be held as cash-carryover into the next year, helping to maintain the D.A. supplement at $10,000 and keep the assistant D.A. at 40 hours.
“I’m not advocating for money be paid out of county funds,” Norris told the court Wednesday. Malheur County Commissioner Louis Wettstein said Norris has come to the county for several years for a salary supplement and the money from the Justice Department for dependency cases was his tool to make it happen.
Several county officials noted that county has, in the past, provided dependency services without state reimbursement and still handle some of the paperwork.
