SCHEDULE FOR REDUCTION OF SHERIFF'S OFFICE SERVICES

[Valuesize]

News Release from: Josephine Co. Sheriff's Office
SCHEDULE FOR REDUCTION OF SHERIFF'S OFFICE SERVICES
Posted: May 25th, 2012 9:09 AM

Starting today, May 25th, in anticipation of a looming $7.5 million dollar budget shortfall, many Sheriff's Office divisions and services will be reducing or ceasing operations.

The drastic decrease in the fiscal year 2012-13 budget, and subsequent years' budgets, is a result of the federal government's decision to terminate federal timber payments, commonly known as Oregon & California (O&C) funds.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE OFFICIAL SCHEDULE FOR REDUCTION OF SERVICES:

FRIDAY, MAY 25TH, 4 P.M. - MAJOR CRIMES UNIT CLOSES

As of 4 p.m. today, the sheriff's Major Crimes Unit will cease operations. Current, open criminal cases have been referred to the District Attorney's Office, but there will be no further investigative follow-up done by sheriff's detectives.

FRIDAY, MAY 25TH, 11 P.M. - RECORDS DIVISION CLOSES

The Records Division, which fields non-emergency phone calls and completes many state-required functions, will close. Non-emergency reports may be submitted by citizens online at www.jocosheriff.us/report, but the reports will simply be logged for information. There will not be any deputy follow-up or investigation.

TUESDAY, MAY 29TH - CIVIL DIVISION HOURS REDUCED

As of May 29th, the Civil Division will be reducing its hours to Tuesday through Friday, 1 to 4 p.m.

FRIDAY, JUNE 1ST - PATROL, K9, RESERVE UNIT AND VOLUNTEER UNIT SERVICES REDUCED

PATROL
Patrol services will decrease from 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The total number of patrol personnel will decrease from 24.5 to 6. Of the remaining six, one is a sergeant and three are contracted by other entities.

Contract deputies' primary responsibilities are to those entities that pay their salaries â€- namely, the City of Cave Junction, the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon State Marine Board. Therefore, their availability to respond to areas outside their contracts will be extremely limited.

Considering the quantity of high priority calls that this office receives, it is clear that patrol will only be able to respond to life threatening incidents.

Sheriff's deputies will respond to life threatening calls only during patrol hours of operation, which are not being publicized for safety reasons. There are no funds available for call outs, so sheriff's deputies will not be available to respond after hours.

If you call 911 after hours, and it is a life threatening situation, Oregon State Police will provide a limited response that involves eliminating the current threat.

Sheriff's patrol deputies will be spread thin, and their response, even in life threatening situations, may be delayed.

As such, the Sheriff's Office regretfully advises that, if you know you are in a potentially volatile situation (for example, you are a protected person in a restraining order that you believe the respondent may violate), you may want to consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services.

K9 UNIT
Our four-team K9 Unit will also be diminished. We are attempting to keep one K9, which will be assigned to the one patrol sergeant. The other three dogs will be retired and adopted by their handlers.

RESERVE UNIT
Our Reserve Unit will still be utilized wherever possible; however, funding constraints will affect their effectiveness as well. For example, due to the high cost of gas and vehicle maintenance, even those reserves who are qualified to work independently will always need to ride with a deputy.

VOLUNTEER UNIT
Due to a lack of staff available for support and back-up, the Volunteer Unit will no longer provide patrol or home security services. They will, however, still provide limited services that don't carry the same safety concerns.

The Murphy substation will be closed, to save on leasing costs. The Merlin and Cave Junction substations will have very limited hours, which are yet to be determined.

TO BE ANNOUNCED - JAIL RELEASE OF INMATES

The jail will be releasing about 60 inmates to get to a level at which the decreased number of staff can safely manage the population. Further information on release procedures and times will be publicized closer to the time(s) of release, for safety reasons.

[chuck white]

Reported crime will drop, Missing persons will increase (nobody will really miss them, unless they're a bad shot.)

[lonerock]

Thanks to our incompetent commissioners. We could save a quarter of a million dollars each year by getting rid of them and no one would really miss them. They could have conducted a poll prior to putting the levy on the ballot to find out what people would be willing to support. They could have been given a choice between two dollars per thousand, one dollar per thousand or no increase in property taxes. With each option they could have been advised what services would be provided, or not provided, with each option. Instead the commissioners just threw the levy on the ballot. Had it passed, Josephine county would have had a higher permanent tax rate then any of the surrounding counties - including Coos, Curry, Klamath, Jackson, Douglas and Lane counties (according to Josephine county assessors office). After ballots were sent out they did pass a resolution to offset property taxes by the amount of federal payments, if received, in the event the levy passed . An hour late and a dollar short! I live in the Illinois Valley and a levy to increase property taxes by a fair amount for fire protection easily passed. It's a matter of knowing what will pass rather than wishful thinking. Now instead of at least something for the counties justice system there's nothing. Way to go commissioners!!

[minuteman]

First of all, it was not a "permanent tax rate" but a levy for four years. At that time, a new solution would be on the ballot. If your current system, after careful review, cost $2.05 to operate and you're losing two-thirds of your revenue, does it make any sense to ask for half of what you need? Two of the three commissioners were in office less than six months and the third had no clue what he was doing, what do you expect, a miracle?

Maybe its best to live with what we have brought upon ourselves, as we continue to remain at the bottom of the barrel! Maybe the two new commissioners, four new city counselors, a new mayor, and a new city manager will somehow come up with a "divine revelation". I wouldn't hold my breath!!

[chuck white]

Maybe we can have local posses, to make up for the lost patrol.




Sunny Valley ready to go, we all have guns and horses.

[lonerock]

The county assessors office referred to it as a part of a permanent tax rate so that's the term I adopted. It's all semantics anyway. In the end it simply means more money that a lot of people on fixed incomes or low paying jobs can't afford. And yes, it does make sense to ask for half of what you need if through a formal or at least casual poll you find that people won't vote for the full levy that you need. Again, I contend that half is better than nothing which is what we have now. As a result of this lack of judgement we will probably have to wait a year to consider another levy since property tax bills are sent out in Oct. and the next election is in Nov. If the federal transportation bill passes and still includes a one year renewal of timber payments then that payment, although smaller than past years, would help supplement money from a reduced levy if one had passed.

I agree that hopefully we'll end up with some more qualified commissioners in the November election . The people of this county need to choose the best qualified candidates for the job rather than those who simply espouse some conservative rhetoric about taking us back to the good old days of logging and mining or taking on the federal government to restore our earlier glory. This county has a population of about 83,000 and pulls little weight with the feds, or anyone else for that matter. We need to do what many other counties have done and move forward into the 21st century. We need to look for new ways to grow other than reliance on timber production. Any increase in logging, even under the DeFazio plan for O&C lands, will still not provide anything close to what we need. We need to pursue other areas such as tourism or attracting retirees. About 70% of this county consists of federal lands so let's utilize this to develop tourism. There many business opportunities for this county. Many candidates for commissioner claim that they will try to bring in new businesses but in the end most of them do little to achieve this because they don't have the necessary background and expertise to pull it off. This needs to change or the only thing we'll have in common with the "good old days" will be ghost towns.

[chuck white]

What we need is, cheaper public employees.

[minuteman]

Cheap is the opposite of quality. You pay for what you get. County employees make far less than city employees and much, much less than Jackson County folks. Their best benefit is PERS which is beyond our control to change. Many county jobs are skilled jobs requiring certain levels of education or skill. Not any yahoo off the street can do the job. Unfortunately, there are no pre-qualifications for commissioner and look what we get!

[Simon Peter]

So many times I felt my hands were tied because I could not employ the justice needed. I am grateful for less government and will enjoy these times while we are lucky enough to have them

[bbqboy]

Simon Zimmerman.

[Clone]

I was just reading an article in the Courier about a felony child abuse case in Selma. It was a horrible occurance involving a meth head and his girlfriend's baby. It involved the baby's head being pulled back by the hair, the child's face being repeatedly smashed into a wall and then wrapping the child in a blanket and hitting the child repeatedly as hard as he could, actually managing to break the femur.

I'm relating this horrible story because the case was carefully constructed and evidence properly collected by the Josephine County Sheriff's Major Crime Unit. The freak was found guilty of a bunch of counts.

The Josephine County Sheriff Major Crime Unit is no longer in existence.

There are 60 jail inmates being released into our community in a matter of days.

Welcome to Josephine County.

[PonderThis]

There sure seemed to be lots of Josephine County sheriff cars and trucks out yesterday, all the way from Boatnik to Cave Junction. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

[HoneyhalfWitch]

There sure seemed to be lots of Josephine County sheriff cars and trucks out yesterday, all the way from Boatnik to Cave Junction. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Give it a month.

[chuck white]

Cheap is the opposite of quality. You pay for what you get. County employees make far less than city employees and much, much less than Jackson County folks. Their best benefit is PERS which is beyond our control to change. Many county jobs are skilled jobs requiring certain levels of education or skill. Not any yahoo off the street can do the job. Unfortunately, there are no pre-qualifications for commissioner and look what we get!

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that.

What we need is less quality public employees.

[DogFaceBoy]

I have never heard of a tax levy ballot that had more than one option. All that would do is dilute all of the votes for those voting yes. Sounds impractical.
[/quote]

[DogFaceBoy]

I don't usually go for personal attackes but any jack monkey that didn't vote for the levy is a blind fool drunk on some tea party kool-aid. This is a public safety disaster.

If I were a business owner thinking about moving here I'd turn around and run. Thank goodness Home Depot is now stuck here, for better or worse.

[chuck white]

I don't usually go for personal attackes but any jack monkey that didn't vote for the levy is a blind fool drunk on some tea party kool-aid. This is a public safety disaster.

If I were a business owner thinking about moving here I'd turn around and run. Thank goodness Home Depot is now stuck here, for better or worse.

We might be a good environment for certain business. Gun sales are up. Home security companies are probably doing well.

[lonerock]

I have never heard of a tax levy ballot that had more than one option. All that would do is dilute all of the votes for those voting yes. Sounds impractical.

[/quote]

I agree that putting multiple options on the ballot wouldn't have worked but they could have conducted a survey prior to putting a levy on the ballot. A survey is pretty simple. Just take a sampling of voters throughout the county and present various options to them and see what possible levy would likely pass. I would have gone with a choice of a one dollar or two dollar options. I think a one dollar increase would have passed and have given the county something as opposed to nothing. To me, doing a survey first is common sense. Businesses often do marketing surveys before releasing a product in order to save $$$$. Now the county has to wait another year to present another levy proposal. That's the real crime!

[chuck white]

$1 levy would have failed too. I blame PERS.

[PonderThis]

I blame cheap persons, too.