County braces for budget cuts, hiring freeze

GOLD BEACH – Curry County will begin a hiring freeze and departments that receive their money from the county’s general fund will be told to submit a budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that is 10 percent below this year’s budget, county commissioners said in a work session on Wednesday.

Curry County and 17 other O&C counties are suffering because they have not received the timber funding guaranteed by Congress in 1939. Congress in 2008 approved a limited four-year funding for the timber counties, at 90 percent of the amount they received for Fiscal Year 2006, then ramping down 10 percent the next two years, and getting only about 45 percent the final year.

“We do know that Congress will consider renewing, hopefully, and that third year won’t happen,” Commissioner Bill Waddle said. “We need to keep the county functioning two more years with reduced revenue. It will be difficult without strict measures. The hiring freeze is one of them.”

He noted that the largest county union is in the third year of a contract.

“We’re going to request that general fund employees that are not union employees come in without a step increase or COLA (cost of living allowance),” Waddle said. “We’re not going to ask for a salary cut across the board.”

He said the county needs to save at least $300,000.

Commissioner Georgia Nowlin said that some departments would not be able to cut their budget by 10 percent next year.

“To get to that point, we probably need to freeze hiring right now,” she said.

“I think it’s a good idea to take it on a case-by-case basis. The hiring freeze is something we’ve got to look at. It would be up to department heads to see how they want to go about it,” Nowlin said.

“I’m in agreement with a hiring freeze for general fund departments. We also need to look at a travel freeze except for mandatory training,” Commissioner George Rhodes said.

Nowlin said she wasn’t sure there should be a travel freeze.

“Department heads, they have enough discretion to realize what should or shouldn’t be done,” she said.

Waddle said another possibility is to go to a four-day work week.

Rhodes said that could be considered, but there are some buildings that must be open five days a week.

“The courthouse, for instance, the state court requires we keep that open,” he said.

County Clerk Reneé Kolen said her office and some others have already reduced the hours they are open to the public.

“We went that way back in ’07,” Nowlin said. “The Road Department is on a four-day week. It works for them fairly well, but it’s not necessarily a cost saving in doing that.”

“Coos County has gone to four days and it has been fairly successful in consolidation of services and cost savings,” Waddle said.

Waddle said he would ask the county counsel to put those recommendations on the commission’s agenda for its March 22 meeting.